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Stephen Leacock Quotations

This socialism, this communism, would work only in Heaven where they don't need it, or in Hell where they already have it. (Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 1 (Feb. 1935): p. 51)

The final stage of the development of humour is reached when amusement no longer arises from a single "funny" idea, meaningless contrast, or odd play upon words, but rests upon a prolonged and sustained conception of the incongruities of human life itself. The shortcomings of our existence, the sad contrast of our aims and our achievements, the little fretting aspiration of the day that fades into the nothingness of to-morrow, kindle in the mellowed mind a sense of gentle amusement from which all selfish sorrow. On this higher plane humour and pathos mingle and become one. To the Creator perhaps in retrospect the little story of man's creation and his fall seems sadly droll. (Essays and Literary Studies. London: John Lane, 1916. pp. 92-93)

Good jests ought to bite like lambs, not dogs: they should cut, not wound. (Ibid., pp. 226-7)

Surface is the best thing to see. (Humour and Humanity: An Introduction to the Study of Humour. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1937. p. 12)

Laughter is the last refuge of sorrow. (My Remarkable Uncle and Other Stories. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1942. p. 159)

Humour in a world of waning beliefs remains like Hope still left at the bottom of Pandora's box when all the evils of the Gods flew out from it upon the world. (Humour, Its Theory and Technique: With Examples and Samples, a Book of Discovery. London: John Lane, 1935. p. 15)

Humour in its highest meaning and its furthest reach... does not depend on verbal incongruities, or on tricks of sight and hearing. It finds its basis in the incongruity of life itself, and contrast between the fretting cares and the petty sorrows of the day and the long mystery of the to-morrow. Hear laughter and tears become one, and humour becomes the contemplation and interpretation of our life. (Ibid., p. 17)

Face Value Technique consists in the contrast between the face value of the words or phrases as usually used and the logical significance of it. (Ibid., p. 36)

Each of us in life is a prisoner. The past offers us, as it were a door of escape. We are set and bound in our confined lot. Outside, somewhere, is eternity; outside, somewhere, is infinity. We seek to reach into it and the pictured past seems to afford to us an outlet of escape. (Ibid., p. 281)

The real adoring husband overtalks his wife, overdominates her, pays with unexpected presents for easy forgiveness of his ill temper, and never knows that he adored her till it is too late, because now she cannot hear it. (Last Leaves. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1945. p. 4)

Humour, it cannot be too often said, must be kind. (How to Write. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1943. pp. 252-3)

There is more clap-trap, insincerity and humbug on the surface of politics than over any equal area on the face of any institution. (The Hohenzollerns in America. New York: John Lane; Torono: S.B. Gundy, 1919. p. 232)

The obligation to die must carry with it the right to live. If every citizen owes it to society that he must fight for it in case of need, then society owes to every citizen the opportunity of a livelihood. "Unemployment," in the case of the willing and able becomes henceforth a social crime. Every democratic Government must henceforth take as the starting point of its industrial policy, that there shall be no such thing as able bodied men and women "out of work," looking for occupation and unable to find it. (The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice. New York: John Lane; Toronto: S.B. Gundy, 1920. pp. 127-8)

If we could in imagination disregard for a moment all question of how the hours of work are to be shortened and how production is to be maintained and ask only what would be the ideal number of the daily hours of compulsory work, for character's sake, few of us would put them at more than four or five. Many of us, as applied to ourselves, at least, would take a chance on character at two. (Ibid., pp. 137-8)

Work must either be found or must be provided by the State itself. It grows upon what it feeds on. Each time a worker is thrown out of employment, there is a loss of purchasing power; with each loss of purchasing power, another man is thrown out of work. There is no end, no stop. (Stephen Leacock's Plan to Relieve the Depression in 6 Days, to Remove It in 6 Months, to Eradicate It in 6 Years. Toronto: Macmillan, 1933. p. 1)

Here you may see a little toddling princess in a rabbit suit who owns fifty distilleries in her own right. (Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1959. p. 7)

The only thing that bothered the Duke was borrowing money. This was necessary from time to time when loans or mortgages fell in, but he hated it. It was beneath him. His ancestors had often taken money, but had never borrowed it, and the Duke chafed under the necessity. There was something about the process that went against the grain. To sit down in pleasant converse with a man, perhpas almost a gentleman, and then lead up to the subject and take his money from him, seemed to the Duke's mind essentially low. He could have understood knocking a man over the head with a fire shovel and taking his money, but not borrowing it. (Ibid., p. 20)

Within twenty-four hours the entire stock of the company bid fair to be in the hand of Idiots, Orphans, Protestants, Foundlings, Imbeciles, Missionaries, Chinese, and other unfinancial people, with Tomlinson the Wizard as the senior shareholder and majority control. (Ibid., p. 67)

Eternal punishment should be reserved for the mortgagees and bondholders. (Ibid., p. 175)

Ever since he had known Zena Pepperleigh he had realized that his love for her was hopeless. She was too beautiful for him and too good for him; her father hated him and her mother despised him; his salary was too small and his own people were too rich. (Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1931. p. 136)

Do not ever try to be funny, for it is a terrible curse. Here is a world going to pieces and I am worried. Yet when I stand up before an audience to deliver my serious thoughts, they begin laughing. I have been advertised to them as funny, and they refuse to accept me as anything else.
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