Jerome K. Jerome

“כדי להנחית את מהלומותיהם, מבקרי אמנות התיאטרון אינם יוצאים מבתיהם לפני רדת הלילה.”

“מידותינו הטובות מרחיקות אותנו זה מזה; טיפשותנו מקרבת אותנו זה לזה.”

“האהבה כמוה כאבעבועות רוח; צריך לעבור זאת.”

“שיחקתי את כל התפקידים ב'המלט' מלבד את זה של אופלייה.”

“אין לך דרך טובה מאשר לומר את האמת, אלא אם כן אתה שקרן מומחה.”

“אנו שותים לבריאות רענו והורסים את בריאותנו.”

“אחרי שחיפש בלי למצוא, הוא מצא בלי לחפש.”

“The music of life would be mute if the chords of memory were snapped asunder.”

“You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris- no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never "weeps, he knows not why." If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore with Harris, and say:"Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mermaids singing deep below the waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting dirges for white corpses held by seaweed?" Harris would take you by the arm, and say:"I know what it is, old man; you've got a chill. Now you come along with me. I know a place round the corner here, where you can get a drop of the finest Scotch whisky you ever tasted- put you right in less than no time."Harris always does know a place round the corner where you can get something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would immediately greet you with:"So glad you've come, old fellow; I've found a nice place round the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar.”

“When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.”

“I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.”

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.”

“A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“I look in the glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical bags (so picturesquely rugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, and wonder what right I have to go about making God's world hideous. Then wild and wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't want to be good and respectable. (I never can be sensible, I'm told; so that don't matter.) I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with red velvet breeches and a green doublet slashed with yellow; to have a light-blue silk cloak on my shoulder, and a black eagle's plume waving from my hat, and a big sword, and a falcon, and a lance, and a prancing horse, so that I might go about and gladden the eyes of the people. Why should we all try to look like ants crawling over a dust-heap? Why shouldn't we dress a little gayly? I am sure if we did we should be happier. True, it is a little thing, but we are a little race, and what is the use of our pretending otherwise and spoiling fun? Let philosophers get themselves up like old crows if they like. But let me be a butterfly.”

“It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It is a blunder, though, and is punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over.”

“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.”

“It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form.”

“I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.”

“We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe.”

“(Speaking of the Cistercian monks) A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God had made so bright! Strange that Nature's voices all around them--the soft singing of the waters, the wisperings of the river grass, the music of the rushing wind--should not have taught them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not.”