A biography for John Gayhasn’t been written yet.
“Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.”
“Follow love and it will flee, flee love and it will follow thee.”
“But his kiss was so sweet, and so closely he pressed, that I languished and pined till I granted the rest.”
“A man is always afraid of a woman that loves him too much”
“O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.”
“The brave love mercy, and delight to save.”
“We only part to meet again.”
“Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Gulliver was soon being read "from the cabinet council to the nursery".”
“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.”
“An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.”
“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.”
“I must have women - there is nothing unbends the mind like them.”
“Shadow owes its birth to light.”
“No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat.”
“Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.”
“Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save.”
“There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one's self.”