143 Quotes by Stephen Leacock

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.

I am what is called a professor emeritus—from the Latin e, 'out,' and meritus, 'so he ought to be.

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.

Chess is one long regret.

My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them.

Indeed I have always found that the only thing in regard to Toronto which faraway people know for certain is that McGill University is in it.

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.

Charles Dickens' creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race - I say it in all seriousness - than Cardinal Newman's Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.

A silk dress in four sections, and shoes with high heels that would have broken the heart of John Calvin.