Stephen Leacock
Stephen Leacock
Stephen P. H Butler Leacock, FRSCwas a Canadian teacher, political scientist, writer, and humourist. Between the years 1910 and 1925, he was the most widely read English-speaking author in the world. He is known for his light humour along with criticisms of people's follies. The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour was named in his honour...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 December 1869
CountryCanada
writing firsts wells
To write well it is first necessary to have something to say.
golf play lifelong
I've seen lifelong friends drift apart over golf just because one could play better, but the other counted better.
running trying firsts
There is an old motto that runs, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." This is nonsense. It ought to read, "If at first you don't succeed, quit, quit at once."
kings order suits
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer "an alleged murderer" and the King of England "the alleged King of England" in order to avoid libel suits.
trust honesty men
Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect.
real work trouble
It was Einstein who made the real trouble. He announced in 1905 that there was no such thing as absolute rest. After that there never was.
inspirational clever work
Most people can tire of a lecture in fifteen minutes, clever people can do it in five, and sensible people don't go to lectures at all.
jobs work specialists
Being a specialist is one thing, getting a job is another.
work thinking actors
When actors begin to think, it's time for a change. They are not fitted for it.
inspiration happier-days perspiration
Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.
america europe sorrow
The sorrows and disasters of Europe always brought fortune to America.
reading writing encyclopedia-britannica
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.
men now-and-then sportsman
A sportsman is a man who, every now and then, simply has to get out and kill something.
retirement autumn blow
A lone maple leaf resting on sand Have you ever been out for a late autumn walk in the closing part of the afternoon, and suddenly looked up to realize that the leaves have practically all gone? And the sun has set and the day gone before you knew it, and with that a cold wind blows across the landscape? That's retirement.