Jerome K. Jerome Quotes

#1. We drink one another's health and spoil our own. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#2. The greatest minds never realise their ideals in any matter; - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#3. Better to work and fail than to sleep one's life away. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#4. Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#5. But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person's fault. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#6. If my name was on a serious work like this it would never get fair treatment. They would all say I had tried to be funny and failed. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#7. Leave me, before I get over the wall & slay you. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#8. Love is too pure a light to burn long among the noisome gases that we breathe, but before it is choked out we may use it as a torch to ignite the cozy fire of affection. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#9. To tell you the truth - mind, this is strictly between ourselves, please; I shouldn't like your wife to know I said it - the women folk don't understand these things; but between you and me, you know, I think it does a man good to swear. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#10. 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. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#11. I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#12. 1lb beefstak, with
1pt bitter beer
every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.
And don't stuff your head with things you don't understand. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#13. Memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls are ever echoing to unseen feet. Through the broken casements we watch the flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are the shadows of our own dead selves. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#14. The less taste a person has in dress, the more obstinate he always seems to be. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#15. A good woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#16. There are the goods; if you want them, you can have them. If you do not want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about them. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#17. In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each member of the crew that he is doing everything. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#18. It all comes of being so attractive, as the old lady said when she was struck by lightning. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#19. Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and years of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#20. Don't rely too much upon that unsteady flicker. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#21. Has he been snatched up to heaven?" I queried. "They'd hardly have taken the pie too," said George. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#22. It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#23. Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin forever and ever and ever if only Edwin had not grown so strange and different. Edwin would have adored Angelina through eternity if Angelina had only remained the same as when he first adored her. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#24. I never knew you played the banjo!" cried Harris and I, in one breath.
"Not exactly," replied George: "but it's very easy, they tell me; and I've got the instruction book!"
From Three Men in a Boat - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#25. A glass of wine often makes me a better man than hearing a sermon. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#26. I like cats ... When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stoop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#27. I saw a great Newfoundland dog the other day sitting in front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in Regent's Circus, and examining himself with an amount of smug satisfaction that I have never seen equaled elsewhere outside a vestry meeting. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#28. Foolish wise folk sneer at you; foolish wise folk would pull up the useless lilies, the needless roses, from the garden, would plant in their places only serviceable wholesome cabbage. But the Gardener knowing better, plants the silly short-lived flowers; foolish wise folk, asking for what purpose. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#29. Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. Also like the measles, we take it only once. One never need be afraid of catching it a second time. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#30. Idling has always been my strong point. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#31. Opportunities flit by while we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and the happiness that comes to us we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#32. One we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences, we can enjoy the best things in life. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#33. There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clock that is always right - except when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock could be in a civilized country. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#34. The chief beauty of this book lies not so much in its literary style, or in the extent and usefulness of the information it conveys, as in its simple truthfulness. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#35. We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#36. They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#37. It is well we cannot see into the future. There are few boys of fourteen who would not feel ashamed of themselves at forty. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#38. Affection will burn cheerily when the white flame of love is flickered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed from day to day and be piled up ever higher as the wintry years draw nigh. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#39. There is an iron "scold's bridle" in Walton Church. They used these things in ancient days for curbing women's tongues. They have given up the attempt now. I suppose iron was getting scarce, and nothing else would be strong enough. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#40. Harris's fixed ideas that he can sing a comic song; the fixed idea, on the contrary, among those of Harris's friends who have heard him try, is that he can't and never will be able to, and that he ought not to be allowed to try. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#41. Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a "T." I don't know what a "T" is (except a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and- butter and cake AD LIB., and is cheap at the price, if you haven't had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody, however, which is greatly to its credit. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#42. There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#43. Weather in towns is like a skylark in a counting-house-out of place and in the way. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#44. Life will always remain a gamble, with prizes sometimes for the imprudent, and blanks so often to the wise. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#45. Life was not an idle dream to be gaped and yawned through, but a noble task, full of duty and stern work. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#46. It seems to me so shocking to see the precious hours of a man's life - the priceless moments that will never come back to him again - being wasted in a mere brutish sleep. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#47. "Not sure," he retorted; "you call yourself a journalist, and admit there is a subject under Heaven of which you are not sure!" - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#48. Cassivelaunus had prepared the river for Caesar, by planting it full of stakes (and had, no doubt, put up a notice-board). - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#49. What I'm looking for is a blessing not in disguise. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#50. Life works upon a compensating balance, and the happiness we gain in one direction we lose in another. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#51. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#52. Conceit is the finest armour a man can wear. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#53. If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#54. A cat's got her own opinion of human beings. She don't say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#55. Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#56. Now, I will drink no German beer. The white wine of the country, with a little soda-water; perhaps occasionally a glass of Ems or potash. But beer, never - or, at all events, hardly ever." It is a good and useful resolution, which I recommend to all travellers. I - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#57. I do like cats. They are so unconsciously amusing. There is such a comic dignity about them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, don't touch me" sort of air. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#58. I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#59. Nobody ever loved as he loves, and so, of course, the rest of the world's experience can be no guide in his case. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#60. 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. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#61. All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So are men - more so, if possible. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#62. Evil thought is a dangerous pet. It is safer to play with it from behind the iron bars of circumstance. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#63. as for exercise! why, you'll get more exercise, sitting down on that ship, than you would turning somersaults on dry land. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#64. A woman never thoroughly cares for her
lover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you have
snapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel that she
begins to smile upon you. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#65. It is in the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest of existence lies. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#66. 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. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#67. That's Harris all over - so ready to take the burden of everything himself, and put it on the backs of other people. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#68. I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't help it. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#69. Time is but the shadow of the world upon the background of Eternity. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#70. 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. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#71. Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he'd let her know in time, so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#72. The facts of life are the impossibilities of fiction. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#73. The weather is like the government, always in the wrong. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#74. about the strains of "He's got 'em on," jerked - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#75. Throw the lumber over, man! - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#76. It must have been worth while having a mere ordinary plague now and then in London to get rid of both the lawyers and the Parliament. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#77. No, what was sad in his case was that he, who didn't care for carved oak, should have his drawing-room panelled with it, while people who do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to be the rule of this world. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#78. It seems to be the rule of this world. Each person has what he doesn't want, and other people have what he does want. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#79. who weighs about twelve stone. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#80. Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#81. A boy's love comes from a full heart; a man's is more often the result of a full stomach. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#82. Five thousand people in one society might do something, but five thousand societies of one member each would be a holy trouble. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#83. Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#84. It's really extraordinary what a variety of ways of loving there must be. We all do it as it was never done before. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#85. Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a two hundred horse-power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at two hundred yards. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#86. And we sit there, by its margin, while the moon, who loves it too, stoops down to kiss it with a sister's kiss, and throws her silver arms around it clingingly. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#87. George goes to sleep at a bank from ten to four each day, except Saturdays, when they wake him up and put him outside at two. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#88. It is a most remarkable thing. I sat down with the full intention of writing something clever and original; but for the life of me I can't think of anything clever and original
at least, not at this moment. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#89. Times Mayor of Abingdon - was, no doubt, a benefactor to his generation, but I hope there are not many of his kind about in this overcrowded nineteenth century. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#90. If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don't you won't get any. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#91. There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas - something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#92. Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago, has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#93. I wrote a poem once - a simple thing, but instinct with longing - while sitting under a tree and listening to the cooing of a pigeon. But that was in the afternoon. My only longing now was for a gun. Three - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#94. But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#95. A boy's muscles move quicker than his thoughts. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#96. THERE were four of us - George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were - bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#97. I respect the truth too much to drag it out on every occasion. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#98. No, there is nothing at all funny in poverty - to the poor. It is hell upon earth to a sensitive man; and many a brave gentleman who would have faced the labors of Hercules has had his heart broken by its petty miseries. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#99. You can always tell the old river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon the cushions at the bottom of the boat, and encourages the rowers by telling them anecdotes about the marvellous feats he performed last season. - Author: Jerome K. Jerome

#100. Students would have no need to "walk the hospitals," if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma. Then - Author: Jerome K. Jerome