Stephen Leacock Quotes

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

~ Stephen Leacock

Advertising - A judicious mixture of flattery and threats.

~ Stephen Leacock

When actors begin to think it is time for a change. They are not fitted for it.

~ Stephen Leacock

The sorrows and disasters of Europe always brought fortune to America.

~ Stephen Leacock

The Lord said 'let there be wheat' and Saskatchewan was born.

~ Stephen Leacock

I'm a great believer in luck. I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

~ Stephen Leacock

Lord Ronald said nothing he flung himself from the room flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

~ Stephen Leacock

The British are terribly lazy about fighting. They like to get it over and done with and then set up a game of cricket.

~ Stephen Leacock

I never realized that there was history close at hand beside my very own home. I did not realize that the old grave that stood among the brambles at the foot of our farm was history.

~ Stephen Leacock

The best definition of humour I know is: humour may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life and the artistic expression thereof. I think this is the best I know because I wrote it myself.

~ Stephen Leacock

You encourage a comic man too much and he gets silly.

~ Stephen Leacock

Any man will admit if need be that his sight is not good or that he cannot swim or shoots badly with a rifle but to touch upon his sense of humour is to give him mortal affront.

~ Stephen Leacock

Charles Dickens' creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race - I say it in all seriousness - than Cardinal Newman's Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.

~ Stephen Leacock

Life we learn too late is in the living in the tissue of every day and hour.

~ Stephen Leacock

A half truth like half a brick is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better.

~ Stephen Leacock

Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself- it is the occurring which is difficult.

~ Stephen Leacock

Charles Dickens' creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race - I say it in all seriousness - than Cardinal Newman's Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.

~ Stephen Leacock

Now, the essence, the very spirit of Christmas is that we first make believe a thing is so, and lo, it presently turns out to be so.

~ Stephen Leacock

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

~ Stephen Leacock

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

~ Stephen Leacock

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

~ Stephen Leacock

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

~ Stephen Leacock

A half truth, like half a brick, is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better.

~ Stephen Leacock

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

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

~ Stephen Leacock

Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect.

~ Stephen Leacock

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

~ Stephen Leacock

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

~ Stephen Leacock

It's called political economy because it is has nothing to do with either politics or economy.

~ Stephen Leacock