278 Quotes by Jerome K. Jerome

It is in the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest of existence lies.

In my youth, the question chiefly important to me was – What sort of man shall I decide to be? At nineteen one asks oneself this question; at thirty-nine we say, “I wish Fate hadn’t made me this sort of man.

One example of a solid but inexplicable fact, ruling all human affairs – your fireworks won’t go off while the crowd is around.

A cat’s got her own opinion of human beings. She don’t say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it.

We had just commenced the third course – the bread and jam – when a gentleman in shirt-sleeves and a short pipe came along, and wanted to know if we knew that we were trespassing. We said we hadn’t given the matter sufficient consideration as yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, but that, if he assured us on his word as a gentleman that we were trespassing, we would, without further hesitation, believe it.

There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet – except in dreams.

I can’t sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can’t help it.

How good one feels when one is full – how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained.

But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person’s fault.