Hats

A hat is a headcovering. It may be worn for protection against the elements, for religious reasons, for safety or as a fashion accessory. Hats were once an indicator of social status. In the military, they denote rank and regiment.

Sourced

• The hat is the ultimatum moriens of respectability.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), VIII.

• A man is nothing without his hat.
  • John Lasseter et al, Toy Story 2 (1999), Buzz Lightyear.

• A hat should be taken off when greeting a lady, and left off the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.
  • P. J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People (1983), Ch. 3.

• He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
  • William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act I, scene 1, line 75.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 355.

• "Sye," he seyd, "be the same hatte
  I can knowe yf my wyfe be badde
  To me by eny other man;
  If my floures ouver fade or falle,
  Then doth my wyfe me wrong wyth alle
  As many a woman can."
  • Adam of Cobsham, The Wright's Chaste Wife, line 265.

• So Britain's monarch once uncovered sat,
  While Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat.
  • James Bramston, Man of Taste.

• One should not talk of hatters in the house of the hanged.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote.

• A hat not much the worse for wear.
  • William Cowper, History of John Gilpin.

• My new straw hat that's trimly lin'd with green,
  Let Peggy wear.
  • John Gay, Shepherd's Week, Friday, line 125.

• I know it is a sin
  For me to sit and grin
  At him here;
  But the old three-cornered hat
  And the breeches and all that
  Are so queer.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Last Leaf.

• The Quaker loves an ample brim,
  A hat that bows to no Salaam;
  And dear the beaver is to him
  As if it never made a dam.
  • Thomas Hood, All Round my Hat.

• A sermon on a hat: "'The hat, my boy, the hat, whatever it may be, is in itself nothing—makes nothing, goes for nothing; but, be sure of it, everything in life depends upon the cock of the hat.' For how many men—we put it to your own experience, reader—have made their way through the thronging crowds that beset fortune, not by the innate worth and excellence of their hats, but simply, as Sampson Piebald has it, by 'the cock of their hats'? The cock's all."
  • Douglas Jerrold, The Romance of a Keyhole, Chapter III.

• I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.
  • Attributed to Duke of Wellington, upon seeing the first Reformed Parliament. Sir William Fraser, in Words on Wellington (1889), P. 12, claims it for the Duke. Captain Gronow, in his Recollections, accredits it to the Duke of York, second son of George III., about 1817.

Unsourced

• A hat is a flag, a shield, a bit of armor, and the badge of femininity. A hat is the difference between wearing clothes and wearing a costume; it's the difference between being dressed and being dressed up; it's the difference between looking adequate and looking your best. A hat is to be stylish in, to glow under, to flirt beneath, to make all others seem jealous over, and to make all men feel masculine about. A piece of magic is a hat.
  • Martha Sliter^{[citation needed]}

• I have a head for hats and a heart for you
  • Jim Stanton^{[citation needed]}