Frasi di Stephen Leacock

„Detesto gli assicuratori: non fanno altro che sostenere che un giorno morirò, e non è così.“

—  Stephen Leacock

„La pubblicità si può descrivere come la scienza di fermare l'intelligenza umana per il tempo necessario a spillarle quattrini.“

—  Stephen Leacock

Origine: Citato in Gino e Michele, Matteo Molinari, Le Formiche: anno terzo, Zelig Editore, 1995, § 1957.

„L'astronomia insegna l'uso corretto dei soli e dei pianeti.“

—  Stephen Leacock

Senza fonte

„I crimini sono creati dal parlamento; perché c'è bisogno di un poliziotto per fare un criminale. Non si diventa criminali infrangendo la legge, ma standoci lontano.“

—  Stephen Leacock

Senza fonte

„L'elettricità è di due tipi, positiva e negativa. La differenza, è, presumo, che una sia un po' più costosa, ma più durevole; l'altra più a buon mercato, ma ci entrano le tarme.“

—  Stephen Leacock

Senza fonte

„Naturalmente, l'idea generale di una lavanderia eccellente è che nessuna camicia o colletto torni mai indietro due volte.“

—  Stephen Leacock

„Sullo stesso conto e sulla stessa parte di questo non ci dovrebbero essere due prezzi per la stessa cosa.“

—  Stephen Leacock

Senza fonte

„Advertising - A judicious mixture of flattery and threats.“

—  Stephen Leacock

„Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.“

—  Stephen Leacock

"Gertrude the Governess", Nonsense Novels (1911)

„I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it“

—  Stephen Leacock

„Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written "Alice in Wonderland" than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica.“

—  Stephen Leacock, libro Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Preface
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)

„Presently I shall be introduced as 'this venerable old gentleman' and the axe will fall when they raise me to the degree of 'grand old man'. That means on our continent any one with snow-white hair who has kept out of jail till eighty.“

—  Stephen Leacock

On achieving fame in Canada.
Three Score and Ten

„A barber is by nature and inclination a sport. He can tell you at what exact hour the ball game is to begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with the better men that he has personally seen elsewhere, with the nicety of a professional.“

—  Stephen Leacock, Literary Lapses

Men Who Have Shaved Me
Literary Lapses (1910)

„It is to be observed that "angling" is the name given to fishing by people who can't fish.“

—  Stephen Leacock

When Fellers Go Fishing http://books.google.com/books?id=I-kCAAAAMAAJ&q=%22It+is+to+be+observed+that+angling+is+the+name+given+to+fishing+by+people+who+can't+fish%22&pg=PA147#v=onepage, The Leacock Roundabout, (1945)

„The rushing of his spirit from its prison-house was as rapid as a hunted cat passing over a garden fence.“

—  Stephen Leacock, Literary Lapses

Literary Lapses (1910)

„Special Correspondence. I learn from a very high authority, whose name I am not at liberty to mention, (speaking to me at a place which I am not allowed to indicate and in a language which I am forbidden to use)—that Austria-Hungary is about to take a diplomatic step of the highest importance. What this step is, I am forbidden to say. But the consequences of it—which unfortunately I am pledged not to disclose—will be such as to effect results which I am not free to enumerate.“

—  Stephen Leacock

The Hohenzollerns in America (1919)

„The Lord said "Let there be wheat" and Saskatchewan was born.“

—  Stephen Leacock

My Discovery of America (1937)

„With the thermometer at 30 below zero and the wind behind him, a man walking on Main Street in Winnipeg knows which side of him is which.“

—  Stephen Leacock

My Discovery of the West (1937)j

„You frequently ask, where are the friends of your childhood, and urge that they shall be brought back to you. As far as I am able to learn, those of your friends who are not in jail are still right there in your native village. You point out that they were wont to share your gambols, If so, you are certainly entitled to have theirs now.“

—  Stephen Leacock, Literary Lapses

The Poet Answered
Literary Lapses (1910)