Quote

The landlady of a boarding-house is a parallelogram - that is, an oblong angular figure, which cannot be described, but which is equal to anything

Stephen Leacock

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Stephen Leacock
Age: 74 †
Born: 1869
Born: December 30
Died: 1944
Died: March 28
Economist
Humorist
Political Scientist
Writer
Hants
Stephen Butler Leacock
Figure
Oblong
Figures
Landlady
Equal
Parallelogram
Economy
Angular
Science
Swag
House
Boarding
Cannot
Swagger
Anything
Described

More quotes by Stephen Leacock

Image
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.
Stephen Leacock
Image
Hockey captures the essence of Canadian experience in the New World. In a land so inescapably and inhospitably cold, hockey is the chance of life, and an affirmation that despite the deathly chill of winter we are alive.
Stephen Leacock
Image
Humour in its highest reach mingles with pathos: it voices sorrow for our human lot and reconciliation with it.
Stephen Leacock
Image
About the only good thing you can say about old age is, it's better than being dead!
Stephen Leacock
Image
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
Image
The minute a man is convinced he is interesting, he isn't.
Stephen Leacock
Image
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.
Stephen Leacock
Image
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
Image
Being a specialist is one thing, getting a job is another.
Stephen Leacock
Image
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
Image
American politicians do anything for money... English politicians take the money and won't do anything.
Stephen Leacock
Image
There is no doubt that many things in life come to us...at backrounds so to speak. Happiness is one of them.
Stephen Leacock
Image
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
Image
The classical scholars have kept alive the tradition of the superiority of the ancient languages -- a kaleidoscopic mass of suffixes and prefixes, supposed to represent an infinite shading of meaning. It is a character they share with the Ojibway and the Zulu.
Stephen Leacock
Image
Chess is one long regret.
Stephen Leacock
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult.
Stephen Leacock
Image
I admit that when the facts are not good enough, I always exaggerate them.
Stephen Leacock
Image
When actors begin to think, it's time for a change. They are not fitted for it.
Stephen Leacock