Stephen Leacock Quotes

Stephen Leacock (30)

Birth:	30th December, 1869
Death:	28th March, 1944
Nationality:	Canadian
Profession:	Humorist, Political Scientist, Teacher, Writer

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Today's Anniversary - 22nd May

Births

• 1930 - Harvey Milk
• 1965 - Jay Carney
• 1925 - Jean Tinguely
• 1755 - Tench Coxe
• 1927 - George Andrew Olah

Deaths

• 1760 - Baal Shem Tov
• 1540 - Francesco Guicciardini
• 1849 - Maria Edgeworth
• 1910 - Jules Renard
• 1922 - Elizabeth David

• Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Intelligence

  Tags in Adversity

• Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Personally, Would, Imagination, Writing

• On the same bill and on the same side of it there should not be two charges for the same thing.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Same Side, Charge

• 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.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Horses, Courage, Cent

• The classics are only primitive literature. They belong to the same class as primitive machinery and primitive music and primitive medicine.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Primitive, Reading, Literature, Book

• What we call creative work, ought not to be called work at all, because it isn’t. I imagine that Thomas Edison never did a day’s work in his last fifty years.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Joy, Life, Work

  Tags in Creativity

• There are two things in ordinary conversation which ordinary people dislike – information and wit.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Wit, Ordinary, Dislike, Conversation

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

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Wedding

  Tags in Marrying, Marriage

• It’s a lie, but Heaven will forgive you for it.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Heaven, Forgive, Lie

• It is to be observed that ‘angling’ is the name given to fishing by people who can’t fish.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fish, Fishing

• In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Statistics, Lies, Fall

• A sportsman is a man who every now and then, simply has to get out and kill something.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Play

• If every day in the life of a school could be the last day but one, there would be little fault to find with it.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fault, School

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

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Wales, Laughing

• Golf may be played on Sunday, not being a game within the view of the law, but being a form of moral effort.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Effort

  Tags in Game, Golf

• 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.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Cocksure, Described, Angular, Equal

• Astronomy teaches the correct use of the sun and the planets.

  Stephen Leacock

  Tags in Planets, Astronomy

• 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.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Positive

  Tags in Cheaper, Moths, Think Positive, Presume, Negative, Electricity

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

  Stephen Leacock

  Tags in Rode, Exasperation, Flung

• It may be those who do most, dream most.

  Stephen Leacock

  Topics in Dream