In earlier times they had no statistics and so they had to fall back on lies. Hence the huge exaggerations of primitive literature, giants, miracles, wonders! It's the size that counts. They did it with lies and we do it with statistics: but it's all the same.

Stephen Leacock

Categorized in : Fall Lying Science

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

christmas essence believe

It may be those who do most, dream most.

Stephen Leacock

success inspiring inspirational

How strange it is, our little procession of life! The child says, "When I am a big boy." But what is that? The big boy says, "When I grow up." And then, grown up, he says, "When I get married." But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to "When I'm able to retire." And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone.

Stephen Leacock

growing-up retirement life

There are two things in ordinary conversation which ordinary people dislike - information and wit

Stephen Leacock

ordinary two people

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

Stephen Leacock

business life funny

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

Stephen Leacock

marriage girl love

Hockey captures the essence of Canadian experience in the New World. In a land so inescapably and inhospitably cold, hockey is the chance of life, and an affirmation that despite the deathly chill of winter we are alive.

Stephen Leacock

nhl hockey winter

Being a specialist is one thing, getting a job is another.

Stephen Leacock

specialists work jobs

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

Stephen Leacock

animal-intelligence money fear

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

Stephen Leacock

motivational positive inspirational

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

Stephen Leacock

economy horse rooms

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

Stephen Leacock

statistics lying fall

If I were founding a university I would begin with a smoking room; next a dormitory; and then a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I still had more money that I couldn't use, I would hire a professor and get some text books.

Stephen Leacock

reading smoking book

The Victorians needed parody. Without it their literature would have been a rank and weedy growth, over-watered with tears.

Stephen Leacock

growth tears literature

You know, many a man realizes late in life that if when he was a boy he had known what he knows now, instead of being what he is he might be what he won't; but how few boys stop to think that if they knew what they don't know instead of being what they will be, they wouldn't be?

Stephen Leacock

men boys thinking

The minute a man is convinced he is interesting, he isn't.

Stephen Leacock

wisdom men interesting

Humour is essentially a comforter, reconciling us to things as they are in contrast to things as they might be.

Stephen Leacock

contrast humour might

I owe a lot to my teachers and mean to pay them back some day.

Stephen Leacock

pay teacher mean

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

Stephen Leacock

encyclopedia-britannica carpe-diem ignorance

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

Stephen Leacock

astronomy use sun