Quotes from Jerome K. Jerome

Sunlight is the life-blood of Nature. Mother Earth looks at us with such dull, soulless eyes, when the sunlight has died away from out of her. It makes us sad to be with her then; she does not seem to know us or to care for us. She is as a widow who has lost the husband she loved, and her children touch her hand, and look up into her eyes, but gain no smile from her.

o mundo não é mais uma mera oficina imunda, mas um templo majestoso onde o homem pode orar e onde, às vezes, na meia-luz, suas mãos tateantes tocam as de Deus.

Harris said he thought it would be humpy.  He said he knew the sort of place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o'clock, and you couldn't get a Referee for love or money, and had to walk ten miles to get your baccy. "No," said Harris, "if you want rest and change, you can't beat a sea trip.

One man in uniform always supports another man in uniform, no matter what the row is about, or who may be in the right—that does not trouble him.  It is a fixed tenet of belief among uniform circles that a uniform can do no wrong.  If burglars wore uniform, the police would be instructed to render them every assistance in their power, and to take into custody any householder attempting to interfere with them in the execution of their business.

The greatest minds never realise their ideals in any matter;

Si un hombre me parase en la calle y me pidiera el reloj, me negaría a dárselo; si me amenazara con quitármelo a la fuerza, creo que, aunque no tengo nada de valiente, haría cuanto pudiera para evitarlo. Pero si, por otra parte, me manifestara su intención de obtenerlo mediante la intervención de los tribunales de justicia, me lo sacaría del bolsillo y se lo daría, convencido de que el asunto me había salido barato.

I resolved, when I began to write this book, that I would be strictly truthful in all things; and so, I will be, even if I have to employ hackneyed phrases for the purpose.

A Surreyside Saturday-night audience are generally inclined to be cheerful, and, if the fun on the stage doesn't satisfy them, they rely on their own resources.

Um auf das Faltblatt für Leberpillen zurückzukommen, so trafen die Symptome ohne jeden Zweifel auf mich zu, vor allem das der 'generellen Aversion gegen physische und mentale Anstrengungen'. Man kann sich gar nicht vorstellen, wie ich darunter leide. Schon in meiner frühesten Kindheit war ich damit geschlagen. (...) 'Los, du faules Stück, steh auf und mach dich nützlich', hieß es immer, und keiner ahnte, dass ich eigentlich krank war.

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

It was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer, as you care to take it, when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green; and the year seems like a fair young maid, trembling with strange, wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood.

battle between Cæsar and Cassivelaunus.  Cassivelaunus had prepared the river for Cæsar, by planting it full of stakes (and had, no doubt, put up a notice-board).  But Cæsar crossed in spite of this.  You couldn't choke Cæsar off that river.  He is the sort of man we want round the backwaters now.

as for exercise! why, you'll get more exercise, sitting down on that ship, than you would turning somersaults on dry land.

For its own sake, a civilized community could no more disregard equity than it dare tolerate an imperfect drainage system.

They awe us, these strange stars, so cold, so clear.  We are as children whose small feet have strayed into some dim-lit temple of the god they have been taught to worship but know not; and, standing where the echoing dome spans the long vista of the shadowy light, glance up, half hoping, half afraid to see some awful vision hovering there. And

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.

It seems to be the rule of the world. Each person has what he doesn't want, & other people have what he does what.

It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk, and left the quiet earth alone with the stars. It seemed as if, in the silence and the hush, while we her children slept, they were talking with her, their sister—conversing of mighty mysteries in voices too vast and deep for childish human ears to catch the sound. They

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.

Well, to tell you the truth, my man's chucked me out." "So's mine! I say, I don't think much of this inn, do you?" "What

Rest and a complete change," said George.  "The overstrain upon our brains has produced a general depression throughout the system.  Change of scene, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore the mental equilibrium.

How good one feels when one is full—how satisfied with ourselves and with the world!  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.  One feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digested meal—so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted.

Thus does unjust suspicion follow even the most blameless for, as the poet says, Who shall escape calumny? Who, indeed!

Now it is fashionable to be democratic, to pretend that no virtue or wisdom can exist outside corduroy, and to abuse the middle classes. One season we go slumming, and the next we are all socialists. We think we are thinking; we are simply dressing ourselves up in words we do not understand for the gods to laugh at us.