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Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Leo Rosten

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Leo Rosten
Age: 88 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 1
Died: 1997
Died: January 1
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Political Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Lodz
Leo Calvin Rosten
Humor
Play
Affectionate
Insight
Communication

More quotes by Leo Rosten

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The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
Leo Rosten
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Where there is too much, something is missing.
Leo Rosten
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Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
Leo Rosten
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Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.
Leo Rosten
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I came to believe it not true that the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one. I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
Leo Rosten
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Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
Leo Rosten
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You understand people better if you look at them-no matter how old or impressive or important they may be-as if they were children. For most men never mature they simply grow taller.
Leo Rosten
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Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
Leo Rosten
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You can learn much about life from a checker game: surrender one to take two don't make two moves at one time move up, not down and when you reach the top, you may move as you like.
Leo Rosten
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The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Leo Rosten
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Satire is focused bitterness.
Leo Rosten
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If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
Leo Rosten
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Dogs are getting bigger, according to a leading dog manufacturer.
Leo Rosten
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Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
Leo Rosten
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The hardest part of growing up is learning how to wait
Leo Rosten
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Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.
Leo Rosten
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Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.
Leo Rosten
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In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
Leo Rosten
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Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
Leo Rosten
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Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games - but not with pleasure.
Leo Rosten