Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Tailors
’Twas when young Eustace wore his heart in’s breeches.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Elder Brother. Act V.
Thy clothes are all the soul thou hast.
Beaumont and Fletcher—Honest Man’s Fortune. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 170.
May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill,
And tailors’ lays be longer than their bill!
While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,
And pay for poems—when they pay for coats.
Byron—English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. L. 781.
Great is the Tailor, but not the greatest.
Carlyle—Essays. Goethe’s Works.
Sister, look ye,
How, by a new creation of my tailor’s
I’ve shook off old mortality.
John Ford—The Fancies Chaste and Noble. Act I. Sc. 3.
A tailor, though a man of upright dealing,—
True but for lying,—honest but for stealing,—
Did fall one day extremely sick by chance
And on the sudden was in wondrous trance.
Sir John Harrington—Of a Precise Tailor.
One commending a Tayler for his dexteritie in his profession, another standing by ratified his opinion, saying tailors had their business at their fingers’ ends.
Hazlitt—Shakespeare Jest Books. Conceits, Clinches, Flashes and Whimzies. No. 93.
’Tis not the robe or garment I affect;
For who would marry with a suit of clothes?
Heywood—Royal King and Loyal Subject. Act II. Sc. 2.
Yes, if they would thank their maker,
And seek no further; but they have new creators,
God tailor and god mercer.
Massinger—A Very Woman. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 161.
What a fine man
Hath your tailor made you!
Massinger—City Madam. Act II. Sc. 2.
As if thou e’er wert angry
But with thy tailor! and yet that poor shred
Can bring more to the making up of a man,
Than can be hoped from thee; thou art his creature;
And did he not, each morning, new create thee,
Thou’dst stink and be forgotten.
Massinger—Fatal Dowry. Act III. Sc. 1.
Get me some French tailor
To new-create you.
Massinger—Renegade. Act III. Sc. 1.
King Stephen was a worthy peere,
His breeches cost him but a crowne;
He held them sixpence all too deere,
Therefore he call’d the taylor lowne.
Thomas Percy—Reliques. Take Thy Old Cloak About Thee. St. 7. Quoted in Othello. Act II. Sc. 2.
Th’ embroider’d suit at least he deem’d his prey;
That suit an unpaid tailor snatch’d away.
Pope—The Dunciad. Bk. II. L. 117.
Thou villain base,
Know’st me not by my clothes?
No, nor thy tailor, rascal,
Who is thy grandfather: he made those clothes,
Which, as it seems, make thee.
Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 80.
Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?
Ay, a tailor, sir; a stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade.
King Lear. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 61.
Thy gown? why, ay;—come, tailor, let us see’t.
O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?
What’s this? a sleeve? ’tis like a demi-cannon:
What, up and down, carv’d like an apple-tart?
Here’s snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber’s shop:
Why, what i’ devil’s name, tailor, call’st thou this!
Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 86.
Il faut neuf tailleurs pour faire un homme.
It takes nine tailors to make a man.
Quoted by Comte de la Villemarque as a Breton proverb.
All his reverend wit
Lies in his wardrobe.
Webster—White Devil. Act II. Sc. 1.