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In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies.

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
Computer
Lies
Economy
Lying
Times
Fall
Back
Statistics
Ancient

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I admit that when the facts are not good enough, I always exaggerate them.
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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.
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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.
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Humour in its highest reach mingles with pathos: it voices sorrow for our human lot and reconciliation with it.
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Golf may be played on Sunday, not being a game within the view of the law, but being a form of moral effort.
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The parent who could see his boy as he really is, would shake his head and say: 'Willie is no good I'll sell him.
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Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
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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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Life, we learn too late, is in the living, the tissue of every day and hour.
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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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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.
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Each section of the British Isles has its own way of laughing, except Wales, which doesn't.
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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.
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Presently I shall be introduced as 'this venerable old gentleman' and the axe will fall when they raise me to the degree of 'grand old man'. That means on our continent any one with snow-white hair who has kept out of jail till eighty.
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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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The tears of childhood fall fast and easily, and evil be to him who makes them flow.
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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.
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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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