“The pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.”

The worst in life, we are told, is compatible with the best in art. So too the worst in life is compatible with the best in humour.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.

Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor.

the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring – or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps – lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.

Humor brings insight and tolerance.

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.

The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.

What puzzles most of us are the things which have been left in the movies rather than the things which have been taken out.

It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves; it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything.

Erudition, like a bloodhound, is a charming thing when held firmly in leash, but it is not so attractive when turned loose upon a defenseless and unerudite public.

to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.

Believers in political faith-healing enjoy a supreme immunity from doubt.

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives.