Quotes 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.
– John Gay
An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.
– John Gay
But his kiss was so sweet, and so closely he pressed, that I languished and pined till I granted the rest.
– 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.
– 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?
– John Gay
Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save.
– John Gay
Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been married? Baggage!
– John Gay
Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either.
– John Gay
Follow love and it will flee, flee love and it will follow thee.
– John Gay
Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
– John Gay
Gamesters and highwaymen are generally very good to their whores, but they are very devils to their wives.
– John Gay
How happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer away!
– 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.
– John Gay
I must have women - there is nothing unbends the mind like them.
– 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.
– John Gay
No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat.
– John Gay
O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.
– John Gay
Of all mechanics, of all servile handycrafts-men, a gamester is the vilest. But yet, as many of the quality are of the profession, he is admitted amongst the politest company.
– John Gay
On the choice of friends, Our good or evil name depends.
– John Gay
Shadow owes its birth to light.
– John Gay
Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
– John Gay
The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's spirits.
– John Gay
There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one's self.
– John Gay
Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.
– John Gay
Through all the employments of life each neighbor abuses his brother; whore and rogue they call husband and wife: All professions be-rogue one another.
– John Gay
We only part to meet again.
– John Gay
What then in love can woman do? If we grow fond they shun us. And when we fly them, they pursue: But leave us when they've won us.
– John Gay