Gerund examples in literature, proverbs and quotations

Proverbs and Sayings 

1. Comment on the use of the gerund in the following proverbs and sayings. Memorize them.

1. Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing him. 
2. He who likes borrowing dislikes paying. 
3. By doing nothing we learn to do ill. 
4. In doing we learn. 
5. Learn to swim by swimming. 
6. Think twice before speaking. 
7. Saying and doing are two things (Saying is one thing and doing another.) 
8. Doing is better than saying. 
9. The word spoken is past recalling. 
10. Seeing is believing. 
11. No flying from fate. 
12. It is ill jesting with edged tools. 
13. Appetite comes with eating. 
14. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. 
15. Pouring water on the fire is not the way to quench it. 
16. Know your own faults before blaming others for theirs. 
17. A watched pot is long in boiling. 
18. Clean hands want no washing. 
19. Between promising and performing a man may marry his daughter. 
20. A thief passes for a gentleman when stealing has made him rich.
21. Fools grow without watering. 

 2. Note the use of the gerund as subject in the following proverbs and sayings.
a.

1. It is ill striving against the stream. 
2. It is good fishing in troubled waters. 
3. It is ill jesting with edged tools. 
4. It’s no use crying over spilt milk. 
5. It’s no safe wading in an unknown water. 

b.

1. 1. There is no accounting for tastes. 
2. 2. There is nothing doing. 
3. 3. There is no saying. 

Quotations 

1. Comment on the tense and voice forms of the gerund in the following quotations. 

1. Journalists say a thing that they know isn’t true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true. (A. Bennett) 
2. One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it unless it has all been suffering, nothing but suffering. (J. Austen) 
3. One does not blame an epoch; one congratulates oneself on not having belonged to it. (J. Cocteau) 
4. The mirror reflects all objects without being sullied. (Confucius) 
5. No one abhors violence more than I do. Still there’s no use crying over spilt milk. (S. Lewis) 
6. He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all. (S. T. Coleridge) 
7. Greatness consists in bringing all manner of mischief on mankind, and goodness in removing it from them. (H. Fielding) 
8. If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. (J. Ruskin) 
9. Riches are for spending. (F. Bacon) 
10. The art of pleasing consists in being pleased. (W. Hazlitt) 
11. He seemed to indulge in all the usual pleasures without being enslaved by any of them. (A. Camus) 
12. In baiting a mouse-trap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse. (Saki)

 2. Point out the quotations in which the gerund is used in the syntactic function of an attribute, object, predicate and subject.

1. Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three and twenty! (J. Austen) 
2. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. (J. Austen) 
3. Life is one long process of getting tired. (S. Butler) 
4. The world is a fine place and worth fighting for. (E. Hemingway)
5. It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. (J. Austen) 
6. There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. (A. Huxley) 
7. It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it. (W. S. Maugham) 
8. Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Grange, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. I don’t ever believe anything till I see it in the papers. (W.S. Maugham) 
9. This is adding insult to injuries. (E. Moore) 
10. There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. (R. L. Stevenson) 
11. Borrowing is not much better than begging. (G. Lessing) 
12. We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. (H. W. Longfellow)
13. No man was ever a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher. (S. T. Coleridge) 
14. It’s wiser being good than bad;
    It’s safer being meek than fierce;
    It’s fitter being sane then mad. (R. Browning) 

 Text 

Read the extract, memorize the sentences with gerunds, and retell the text using those sentences.

      "Now", said Wardle, after finishing lunch, "What do you say to an hour on the ice? You skate, of course, Winkle?"
      "Ye-yes, oh, yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I-I—am rather out of practice but I shall enjoy skating."
      Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice. After adjusting their skates all the guests began describing circles with their legs, and cutting figures of eight.
      All that time Mr. Winkle stood watching the others, with his face and hands blue with cold.
      How he wished that something prevented him from showing his skill!     
     "Now, Winkle," cried Mr. Pickwick, very much surprised at his friend’s being so slow, "Come, the ladies are all anxiety."
      The unfortunate gentleman started moving to the centre of the reel and in so doing he struck against Mr. Sawyer and with a loud crash they both fell heavily down.

(After 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club' by Ch. Dickens)

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