Famous John Gay Quotations

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"The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's spirits."
by John Gay
"In beauty, faults conspicuous grow; the smallest speck is seen on snow"
by John Gay
"A rich rogue nowadays is fit company for any gentleman; and the world, my dear, hath not such a contempt for roguery as you imagine."
by John Gay
"Cowards are cruel, but the brave
Love mercy, and delight to save."
by John Gay
"Cowards are cruel, but the brave Love mercy, and delight to save."
by John Gay
"We only part to meet again."
by John Gay
"The brave love mercy, and delight to save."
by John Gay
"Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his neighbor, and yet we herd together."
by John Gay
"Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise."
by John Gay
"How the mother is to be pitied who hath handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars, and lectures of morality are nothing to them: they break through them all. They have as much pleasure in cheating a father and mother, as in cheating at cards."
by John Gay
"Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose."
by John Gay
"Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!"
by John Gay
"Can you support the expense of a husband, hussy, in gaming, drinking and whoring? Have you money enough to carry on the daily quarrels of man and wife about who shall squander most?"
by John Gay
"Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!"
by John Gay
"O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on."
by John Gay
"I must have women -- there is nothing unbends the mind like them."
by John Gay
"Shadow owes its birth to light."
by John Gay
"No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat."
by John Gay
"But money, wife, is the true Fuller's Earth for reputations, there is not a spot or a stain but what it can take out."
by John Gay
"Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it."
by John Gay


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