Quotes to inspire and reflect

The most dangerous thing in the world is to make a friend of an Englishman, because he’ll come sleep in your closet rather than spend ten shillings on a hotel.

[An Englishman] does everything on principle: He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles…

No Englishman is ever fairly beaten.

From every Englishman emanates a kind of gas, the deadly choke-lamp of boredom.

There’ll always be an England, even if it’s in Hollywood.

…the British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having more than one topic every three months.

All Englishmen talk as if they’ve got a bushel of plums stuck in their throats, and then, after swallowing them, get constipated from the pits.

…he is a typical Englishman, always dull and usually violent.

England, the heart of a rabbit in the body of a lion.

She has no bosom and no behind.

Academe, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n. A modern school where football is taught.

If all the girls attending [the Yale prom] were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I was thrown out of college for cheating on my metaphysics final….I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

Society produces rogues and education makes one rogue cleverer than another.

To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students I say, you, too, can be president of the United States.

If I had any decency, I’d be dead. Most of my friends are.

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

Although always prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

One can survive everything nowadays, except death…

It is a much cleverer thing to talk nonsense than to listen to it…

I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid.

He speaks nothing but madman.

“No comment” is a splendid expression. I’m using it again and again.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.

Every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.

What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.

Christmas, n. A day set apart and consecrated to gluttony, drunkenness, maudlin sentiment, gift-taking, public dullness and domestic behavior.

The whole point of Christmas is that it is a debauch—as it was probably long before the birth of Christ was arbitrarily fixed at that date.

Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out.

A Merry Christmas to all my friends except two.

The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant—and let the air out of the tires.

I never met a kid I liked.

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

There’s no such thing as a tough child. If you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.

I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.

The baby is fine. The only problem is that he looks like Edward G. Robinson.

What is a home without children? Quiet.

My mother loved children—she would have given anything if I had been one.

Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.

It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.

…a few acres of snow…