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

#believe #essence #first #make #make believe

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

— Stephen Leacock

#charges #same #should #side #thing

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

— Stephen Leacock

#class #classics #literature #machinery #medicine

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

#anything #cannot #described #equal #figure

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

— Stephen Leacock

#dislike #information #ordinary #ordinary people #people

We think of the noble object for which the professor appears tonight, we may be assured that the Lord will forgive any one who will laugh at the professor. ↗

— Stephen Leacock

#appears #assured #forgive #laugh #lord

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

#call #called #creative #creative work #day

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

— Stephen Leacock

#always #argument #better #brick #carries

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

#down #ideas #itself #jot #just

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

— Stephen Leacock

#able #another #degree #dishonesty #entitled