William Maginn

"You've heard, I suppose, long ago, How the snakes, in a manner most antic, He march'd to the County Mayo, And trundled them into th' Atlantic. Hence not to use water for drink The people of Ireland determine; With mighty good reason, I think, Since St Patrick has fill'd it with vermin, And vipers, and other such stuff."

"Marrying girls is a nice matter always; for they are as cautious as crows plundering a corn-field. ... I don't myself, I profess, upon principle, see any objection to marrying a widow. ... If a woman, however, has had more than three husbands, she poisons them: avoid her."

"Tap claret tastes best out of a pewter pot."

"Every popular preacher is a goose."

"Poetry is like claret, one enjoys it only when it is very new, or when it is very old."

"There is no such thing as female genius."

"When a man is drunk, it is no matter upon what he has got drunk."

"Much is to be said in favour of toasted cheese for supper."

"Hock cannot be too much, claret cannot be too little, iced."

"Never take lobster-sauce to salmon; it is mere painting of the lily, or, I should rather say, of the rose."

"In literature and in love we generally begin in bad taste."

"He whose friendship is worth having, must hate and be hated."

"Whenever you see a book frequently advertised, you may be pretty sure it is a bad one. If you see a puff quoted in the advertisement, you may be quite sure."

"Ass-milk, they say, tastes exceedingly like woman's. No wonder."

"No cigar-smoker ever committed suicide."

"The safety of women consists in one circumstance: Men do not possess at the same time the knowledge of thirty-five and the blood of seventeen."

"The finest of all times for flirting is a wedding. They are all agog, poor things!"

"If prudes were as pure as they would have us believe, they would not rail so bitterly as they do. We do not thoroughly hate that which we do not thoroughly understand."

"People may talk as they like, but after all, London is London."

"Maxims are hard reading, demanding a constant stretch of the intellectual faculties. Every word must be diligently pondered, every assertion examined in all its bearings, pursued with a keen eye to its remotest consequences, rejected with a philosophic calmness, or treasured up with the same feeling as a "κτημα ες αει" — a "possession to eternity.""

"We moderns are perhaps inferior to our ancestors in nothing more than in our epitaphs."

"In general, in-door prospects are the best. What purling brook matches the music of my gurgling bottle? What is an old roofless cathedral compared to a well-built pie?"

"Claret should always be decanted."

"In order to know what cod really is, you must eat it in Newfoundland."

"The best of all pies is a grouse-pie."

"Cold pig's face is one of the best things in the world for breakfast."

"Never wear a coat with a velvet collar."

"It is singular that scarcely any tailor who can make a coat well, can make pantaloons."

"Some people tell you you should not drink claret after strawberries. They are wrong, if the claret be good. The milky taste of good claret coheses admirably with strawberries — somewhat like cream."

"The wight can tell A melancholy and a merry tale Of field, and fight, and chief, and lady gay."

"A band of gallant souls, who knew The olive wood, the mountain blue, The ration rum, the biscuit black, The long bleak road, the bivouac, The cannon's thunder, and the bays That wave o'er glorious victories, Better than city's midnight dress, Her luxuries, and gaudiness."

"No tom cat ever paid more determined attention to mouse-catching pastime, than did the General to his favourite pleasure of pouncing upon the invalid officer, who but dared to show himself out of his melancholy quarters. He conceived that no man could possibly be sick, who was able to move his legs; and if a half dead officer could but smoke a cigar, or twist the corners of his mouth into a smile, the whole medical staff could not have persuaded the General out of his opinion, that such a person was not only in excellent health, but fit to brave the rudest weather, and the severest duties of the field."

"For your Tories his fine Irish brain he would spin, Who received prose and rhyme with a promising grin, "Go ahead, you queer fish, and more power to your fin!" But to save from starvation stirred never a pin... But at last he was beat, and sought help of the bin, (All the same to the Doctor, from claret to gin), Which led swiftly to gaol, with consumption therein; It was much, when the bones rattled loose in his skin. He got leave to die here, out of Babylon’s din. Barring drinks and the girls, I ne’er heard of a sin, Many worse, better few, than bright broken Maginn."