11 Stephen Leacock Quotes on Humor

Stephen Leacock quotes on humor

5. Presently I shall be introduced as 'this venerable old gentleman' and the axe will fall when they raise me to the degree of 'grand old man'. That means on our continent any one with snow-white hair who has kept out of jail till eighty.

9. Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written 'Alice in Wonderland' than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica.

13. Each section of the British Isles has its own way of laughing, except Wales, which doesn't.

14. Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it.

15. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

17. I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so.

21. It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have. I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required.

25. Many a man in love with a dimple makes a mistake of marrying the whole girl.

31. Synopsis of Previous Chapters: There are no Previous Chapters.

35. The landlady of a boarding-house is a parallelogram - that is, an oblong angular figure, which cannot be described, but which is equal to anything.

38. We think of the noble object for which the professor appears to-night, we may be assured that the Lord will forgive any one who will laugh at the professor.