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

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
Book
Machinery
Primitive
Belong
Medicine
Class
Literature
Reading
Music
Classics

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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.
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With the Great Detective, to think was to act, and to act was to think. Frequently he could do both together.
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The tears of childhood fall fast and easily, and evil be to him who makes them flow.
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Chess is one long regret.
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Anybody who has listened to certain kinds of music, or read certain kinds of poetry, or heard certain kinds of performances on the concertina, will admit that even suicide has its brighter aspects.
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In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies.
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Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof.
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Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
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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.
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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.
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I've seen lifelong friends drift apart over golf just because one could play better, but the other counted better.
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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.
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Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect.
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Too much has been said of the heroes of history-the strong men, the troublesome men too little of the amiable, the kindly, the tolerant.
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Modern critics, who refuse to let a plain thing alone, have now started a theory that Cervantes's work is a vast piece of symbolism. If so, Cervantes didn't know it himself and nobody thought of it for three hundred years. He meant it as a satire upon the silly romances of chivalry.
Stephen Leacock
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The minute a man is convinced he is interesting, he isn't.
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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The Victorians needed parody. Without it their literature would have been a rank and weedy growth, over-watered with tears.
Stephen Leacock
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You cannot depict love inside a frame of fact. It needs a mist to dissolve in.
Stephen Leacock
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When actors begin to think, it's time for a change. They are not fitted for it.
Stephen Leacock