Douglas William Jerrold Quotations

There is peace more destructive of the manhood of living man than war is destructive of his material body.

The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.

Love's like the measles - all the worse when it comes late in life.

He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.

The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon.

Marriage is like wine. It is not be properly judged until the second glass.

Some people are so fond of ill luck that they run halfway to meet it.

Religion's in the heart, not in the knees.

In this world truth can wait; she is used to it.

We love peace, but not peace at any price.

The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.

Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it's ten to one if they hang long together.

Humor is the harmony of the heart.

The blackest of fluid is used as an agent to enlighten the world.

Intemperance is the epitome of every crime, the cause of every kind of misery.

Malice blunts the point of wit.

Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it.

Keep your eyes and ears open, if you desire to get on in the world.

Patience is the strongest of strong drinks; for it kills the giant despair.

There are a good many pious people who are as careful of their religion as of their best service of china, only using it on holy occasions, for fear it should get chipped or flawed in working-day wear.

Rogues are prone to find things before they are lost.

Luck, mere luck may make even madness wisdom.

Wishes, at least, are the easy pleasures of the poor.

Wits, like drunken men with swords, are apt to draw their steel upon their best acquaintances.

What a fine-looking thing is war! Yet, dress it as we may, dress and feather it, daub it with gold, huzza it, and sing swaggering songs about it,--what is it, nine times out of ten, but murder in uniform!

Some of 'em [virtues] like extinct volcanoes, with a strong memory or fire and brimstone.

Virtue is a beautiful thing in woman when they don't go about with it like a child with a drum making all sorts of noise with it.

I would like to have a second chance at my first love.

As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate"; and the water, put nought in in malice.

I never hear the rattling of dice that it does not sound to me like the funeral bell of the whole family.

He who owns the soil, owns up to the sky.

The language of women should be luminous, but not voluminous.

A pill that the present moment is daily bread to thousands.

A conservative is a man who will not look at the new moon out of respect for that 'ancient institution' the old one.

The sharp employ the sharp.

Love the sea? I dote upon it--from the beach.

Dogmation is puppyism come to its full growth.

A piece of simple goodness--a letter gushing from the heart; a beautiful unstudied vindication of the worth and untiring sweetness of human nature--a record of the invulnerability of man, armed with high purpose, sanctified by truth.

That man is thought a dangerous knave, Or zealot plotting crime, Who for advancement of his kind Is wiser than his time.

Reputations, like beavers and cloaks, shall last some people twice the time of others.

A coquette is like a recruiting sergeant, always on the lookout for fresh victims.

Literature, like a gypsy, to be picturesque, should be a little ragged.

Troubles are like babies - they only grow by nursing.

Religion is in the heart, not in the knees.

Not peace at any price! Chains are worse than bayonets.

He is one of those wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.

If slander be a snake, it is a winged one - it flies as well as creeps.

Don't buy a single vote more than necessary.

What women would do if they could not cry, nobody knows. What poor, defenceless creatures they would be!

Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.

Duty, though set about by thorns, may still be made a staff supporting even while it tortures. Cast it away, and, like the prophet's wand, it changes to a snake.

Man owes two solemn debts--one to society, and one to-nature. It is only when he pays the second that he covers the first.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

A man never so beautifully shows his own strength as when he respects a woman's softness.

Gravity is more suggestive than convincing.

Grumblers deserve to be operated upon surgically; their trouble is usually chronic.

Fix yourself upon the wealthy. In a word, take this for a golden rule through life: Never, never have a friend that is poorer than yourself.

O this itch of the ear, that breaks out at the tongue! Were not curiosity so over-busy, detraction would soon be starved to death.

We are all slaves to the shining metal.

Slugs crawl and crawl over our cabbages, like the world's slander over a good name. You may kill them, it is true; but there is the slime.

Women, somehow, have the same fear of witty men as of fireworks.

A man is in no danger so long as he talks his love; but to write it is to impale himself on his own pothooks.

A man, so to speak, who is not able to bow to his own conscience every morning is hardly in a condition to respectfully salute the world at any other time of the day.

Wit, like money, bears an extra value when rung down immediately it is wanted. Men pay severely who require credit.

It takes all sorts of people to make a world.

God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man said, 'Let us make God in our image.

Self-defense is the clearest of all laws; and for this reason - the lawyers didn't make it.

That questionable superfluity small beer.

The sharp employ the sharp; verily, a man may be known by his attorney.

If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event.

There are some people as obtuse in recognizing an argument as they are in appreciating wit. You couldn't drive it into their heads with a hammer.

A creature undefiled by the taint of the world, unvexed by its injustice, unwearied by its hollow pleasures; a being fresh from the source of light, with something of its universal lustre in it. If childhood be this, how holy the duty to see that in its onward growth it shall be no other!

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.

Nature designed us to be of good cheer.

Even the worse of jobs has their pleasures, if I were a grave digger or a hangmen, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

Jewels! It's my belief that when woman was made, jewels were invented only to make her the more mischievous.

A blessed companion is a book--a book that, fitly chosen, is a lifelong friend...a book that, at a touch, pours its heart into your own.

Quality, not quantity, is my measure.

After all there is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.