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

Stephen Leacock

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Stephen Leacock
Age: 74 †
Born: 1869
Born: December 30
Died: 1944
Died: March 28
Economist
Humorist
Political Scientist
Writer
Hants
Stephen Butler Leacock
Enough
Advertising
Long
Intelligence
Economy
Fear
Science
Money
Arresting
Human
Adverts
Humans
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More quotes by Stephen Leacock

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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
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The great man... walks across his century and leaves the marks of his feet all over it, ripping out the dates on his goloshes as he passes.
Stephen Leacock
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In earlier times they had no statistics and so they had to fall back on lies. Hence the huge exaggerations of primitive literature, giants, miracles, wonders! It's the size that counts. They did it with lies and we do it with statistics: but it's all the same.
Stephen Leacock
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American politicians do anything for money... English politicians take the money and won't do anything.
Stephen Leacock
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If every day in the life of a school could be the last day but one, there would be little fault to find with it.
Stephen Leacock
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Newspapermen learn to call a murderer an alleged murderer and the King of England the alleged King of England in order to avoid libel suits.
Stephen Leacock
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Most people tire of a lecture in ten minutes clever people can do it in five. Sensible people never go to lectures at all. But the people who do go to a lecture and who get tired of it, presently hold it as a sort of grudge against the lecturer personally. In reality his sufferings are worse than theirs.
Stephen Leacock
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A lone maple leaf resting on sand Have you ever been out for a late autumn walk in the closing part of the afternoon, and suddenly looked up to realize that the leaves have practically all gone? And the sun has set and the day gone before you knew it, and with that a cold wind blows across the landscape? That's retirement.
Stephen Leacock
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All our yesterdays, it is true, have only lighted fools the way to dusty death. But we need at least the dates of the yesterdays and the list of the fools.
Stephen Leacock
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I am what is called a professor emeritus—from the Latin e, 'out,' and meritus, 'so he ought to be.
Stephen Leacock
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I've seen lifelong friends drift apart over golf just because one could play better, but the other counted better.
Stephen Leacock
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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
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You frequently ask, where are the friends of your childhood, and urge that they shall be brought back to you. As far as I am able to learn, those of your friends who are not in jail are still right there in your native village. You point out that they were wont to share your gambols, If so, you are certainly entitled to have theirs now.
Stephen Leacock
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Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof.
Stephen Leacock
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There is an old motto that runs, If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. This is nonsense. It ought to read, If at first you don't succeed, quit, quit at once.
Stephen Leacock
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Charles Dickens' creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race - I say it in all seriousness - than Cardinal Newman's Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.
Stephen Leacock
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The tears of childhood fall fast and easily, and evil be to him who makes them flow.
Stephen Leacock
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Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect.
Stephen Leacock
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It may be those who do most, dream most.
Stephen Leacock
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Indeed I have always found that the only thing in regard to Toronto which faraway people know for certain is that McGill University is in it.
Stephen Leacock