William Maginn

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 …

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

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.

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

Never wear a coat with a velvet collar.

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

The best of all pies is a grouse-pie.

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

Claret should always be decanted.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

No cigar-smoker ever committed suicide.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no such thing as female genius.