Inspirational Quotes by Stephen Leacock (Canadian Humorist)

A half truth, like half a brick, is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Arguments

Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Humor

Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Imagination

Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Deception/Lying

Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.
—Stephen Leacock

Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Marriage, Experience

In Canada we have enough to do keeping up with two spoken languages … so we just go right ahead and use English for literature, Scotch for sermons, and American for conversation.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Canada

In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies
—Stephen Leacock

But the deep background that lies behind and beyond what we call humor is revealed only to the few who, by instinct or by effort, have given thought to it. The world’s humor, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the highest product of our civilization. Its basis lies in the deeper contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity between our aspiration and our achievement, the eager and fretful anxieties of today that fade into nothingness tomorrow, the burning pain and the sharp sorrow that are softened in the gentle retrospect of time, till as we look back upon the course that has been traversed, we pass in view the panorama of our lives, as people in old age may recall, with mingled tears and smiles, the angry quarrels of their childhood. And here, in its larger aspect, humor is blended with pathos till the two are one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Humor

The sorrows and disasters of Europe always brought fortune to America.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Sorrow, Sadness

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

The classics are only primitive literature. They belong to the same class as primitive machinery and primitive music and primitive medicine.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Books, Literature, Reading

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.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Horses

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
Topics: Enjoyment

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There’s no use in being a damn fool about it.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Success

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
Topics: Libraries

It may be that those who do most, dream most.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Forethought, Vision, Foresight, Dreams

It’s a lie, but Heaven will forgive you for it
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Forgiveness

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

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

Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.
—Stephen Leacock
Topics: Value of a Day, Life and Living, Time Management

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

• Robertson Davies Canadian Novelist, Playwright
• Bainbridge Colby American Politician
• William Mulock Canadian Lawyer, Educator
• Frederick Banting Canadian Medical Scientist
• Margaret Atwood Canadian Author
• Damon Runyon American Writer, Journalist
• Henry Steele Commager American Historian
• Robert M. Pirsig American Writer
• Harvey Williams Cushing American Neurosurgeon, Biographer
• Henri Matisse French Painter, Sculptor