Quotessence
Home / Authors / Stephen Leacock
Stephen Leacock

Stephen Leacock Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllEconomyMenIfsPeopleWorkEnoughFallTwoFirstsHumour

Famous Stephen Leacock Quotes

“All the books and instructions insist that the selection of the soil is the most important part of gardening. No doubt it is. But, if a man has already selected his own backyard before he opens the book, what remedy is there? All the books lay stress on the need of "a deep, friable loam full of nitrogen." This I have never seen. My own plot of land I found on examination to contain nothing but earth. I could see no trace of nitrogen. I do not deny the existence of loam. There may be such a thing. But I am admitting now in all humility of mind that I don't know what loam is.”

Gardening Humor
Book:Frenzied Fiction
Create image

“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.”

LifeLooksChildrenLittlesBigsSeemsAbleGrowsBoysGoneGrowing UpStrangeWindColdMarriedLandscapeOver ItRetirementRetiringBeing MarriedProcessionCold Wind
Book:Feast of Stephen
Create image

“We can no longer communicate with the apes by direct language, nor can we understand, without special study, their modes of communication which we have long since replaced by more elaborate forms. But it is at least presumable that they could still detect in our speech, at least when it is public and elaborate, the underlying tone values with which it began. Thus if we could take a gibbon ape to a college public lecture, he would not understand it, but he would "get a good deal of it." This is all the students get anyway.”

IfsLongStillsFormValuesLanguageDealsStudySpecialStudentsCollegeCommunicationSpeechDirectCommunicateToneReplacedLecturesApes
Book:Leacock on Life
Create image

“A barber is by nature and inclination a sport. He can tell you at what exact hour the ball game is to begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with the better men that he has personally seen elsewhere, with the nicety of a professional.”

MenGamesSportsHoursIssuesPlayerLosingBallsElsewhereStrokesInclinationInferiorityRazorsBetter ManBall GamesBarbersNiceties
Book:Literary Lapses
Create image

“How can you shorten the subject? That stern struggle with the multiplication table, for many people not yet ended in victory, how can you make it less? Square root, as obdurate as a hardwood stump in a pasturenothing but years of effort can extract it. You can't hurry the process. Or pass from arithmetic to algebra; you can't shoulder your way past quadratic equations or ripple through the binomial theorem. Instead, the other way; your feet are impeded in the tangled growth, your pace slackens, you sink and fall somewhere near the binomial theorem with the calculus in sight on the horizon.”

PeopleWayYearsPastFallProcessGrowthEffortStruggleFeetSubjectsVictoryRootsSightMathematicsTablesMathShouldersMathematicalHorizonPaceSquaresEquationsRippleArithmeticAlgebraTangledCalculusTheoremsMultiplicationStumpsSquare RootsHardwoodQuadraticsQuadratic Equation
Author:Stephen Leacock
Create image

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

InspirationalWisdomHumorInspirationMotivationalSuccessWorkMoneyBusinessPositiveHard WorkLuckyLaborExperienceHarderLuckBelieverHard TimesDedicationGreat WorkSeekersGood LuckBest WorkLoving LifeWork HarderGreat SuccessBad LuckHardworkHardworkingDetermination And SuccessMotivational WorkLabor DayHard Work Pays OffWork EffortHardwork And DeterminationMotivational CareerMotivational JobWork RelatedHard Work SuccessHard Work Comes SuccessInspired To WorkLabour DayEffort And Hard WorkHard Work MotivationalHappy Labor DayInspirational Hard WorkMotivation And Hard WorkBest Of LuckHard Work And SuccessSaying Good LuckFortune And LuckValue Of Hard WorkWork And LifeLabour Day WeekendFunny Labor DayPerseverance And Hard WorkNo Such Thing As LuckHard Work And PersistenceEffort And SuccessLuck And Hard WorkLuck And SkillExtra WorkDumb Luck
Book:Leacock on Life
Create image