Stephen Leacock

Advertising - A judicious mixture of flattery and threats.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It may be that those who do most dream most.

A sportsman is a man who every now and then simply has to get out and kill something. Not that he's cruel. He wouldn't hurt a fly. It's not big enough.

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

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

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