The Worlds Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906. Vols. VIIX: British | | Odd Ideas | By Lionel Strachey (18641927) |
| TO be fashionable, either in this world or the next, you must belong to the minoritythat is, the best people. | 1 |
The only life to be endured for ever would be one of unfulfilled desires. Therefore pray for descent after death: in that place never a single wish will be gratified. Paradise itself offers no such inducement. | 2 |
Who says marriage is a failure? It is nothing of the kindprovided you let it alone. | 3 |
To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretences but your own. | 4 |
A law is a caprice of the majority. | 5 |
Any woman in the worldeven a nunwould rather lose her virtue than her reputation. | 6 |
Statistics are mendacious truths. | 7 |
The English, said Napoleon, are a nation of shop-keepers. Their cousins, the Americans, are a nation of commercial travellers. | 8 |
Americans guess because they are in too great a hurry to think. | 9 |
A brilliant epigram is a solemn platitude gone to a masquerade ball. | 10 |
When humour is meant to be taken seriously, its no joke. | 11 | |
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