King John Quotes
Shmoop will make you a better lover...of quotes
ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECT
Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
Context
This is a misquote from William Shakespeare's play King John (1623).
No, this quote does not appear with these exact words in Shakespeare's play, King John, but the meaning is basically the same. In the play, Salisbury is saying that it's pretty darn wasteful and redundant to try to make a beautiful thing even more beautiful. In this case, we're talking about taking a lily and covering it in gold. Seriously, how do you improve on a flower like that? Why would you even try?
Where you've heard it
You've probably heard the phrase when people are talking about adding more fancy things to something that's already fancy. A supermodel with makeup is just gilding the lily. She's already the bomb without it.
Additional Notable References:
- C.K. Chesterton once wrote, "If we wonder at the way in which they seem to gild the lily, they would wonder quite as much at the way we gild the weed."
- In the movie The Aristocrats, one of the comedians explains that the joke the movie is based on "is the one joke where you get to invent every sick act you could imagine, load it up into this joke and never actually be accused of gilding the lily."
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
The fact that you're (mis)quoting Shakespeare ups your pretentiousness factor a little. But because you're calling into question excess for excesses sake, that will take you down a few notches.