John Gay Quotes

Chuse none for thy servant who have served thy betters.

I just have friends that don't sell their pictures to newspapers.

I take things like honor and loyalty seriously. It's more important to me than any materialistic thing or any fame I could have.

Ones reputation is like a shadow, it is gigantic when it precedes you, and a pigmy in proportion when it follows.

For you must both of you bear in mind that you remain still, as really and truly as ever, your master's property, and therefore it will be justly expected, both by God and man, that you behave and conduct yourselves as obedient and faithful servants.

Wherefore a good name is better than riches.

The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you.

Fame confers a rank above that of gentleman and of kings. As soon as she issues her patent of nobility, it matters not a straw whether the recipient be the son of a Bourbon or of a tallow-chandler.

Servants, when their lords no longer sway, Their minds no more to righteous courses bend.

I am ashamed of my master and not of my servitude.

It is easier to add to a great reputation than to get it.

There is a policy in manner. I have heard one, not inexperienced in the pursuit of fame, give it his earnest support, as being the surest passport to absolute and brilliant success.

He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

Integrity is keeping my commitments even if the circumstances when I made those commitments have changed.

There's nothing worse than breaking a promise to someone who cares about you.

If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.

Titles are valuable; they make us acquainted with many persons who otherwise would be lost among the rubbish.

A good man will never suspect his friends of shady actions: this is part of his goodness. A good man will never be suspected by the public of using his goodness to screen villains: this is part of his utility

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious. But for the same reason everyone is eager to instruct his neighbours. To be wise or to be virtuous is to buy dignity and importance at a high price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the follies or faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of fame as to linger on the ground.

To me there is no difference whether president, beggar, or king.

I wish I could find words to express the trueness, the bravery, the hardihood, the sense of honor, the loyalty to their trust and to each other of the old trail hands.

You humiliate a rich person and they're still rich. You humiliate a brilliant person and they're still smart. A person who is well connected is still the king of England. But if you humiliate a young person, you take away the only form of power they have.

I have been formerly so silly as to hope that every servant I had might be made a friend; I am now convinced that the nature of servitude generally bears a contrary tendency. People's characters are to be chiefly collected from their education and place in life; birth itself does but little.

People are fascinated by the rich: Shakespeare wrote plays about kings, not beggars.