Quotes from Jerome K. Jerome

It is only the first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's time.Five or six do not require nearly so much attention as one.

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.

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.

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. 

Will the prized treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the day before?  Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd?  Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? China

We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without.

Let us gather together in the great cities, and light huge bonfires of a million gas-jets, and shout and sing together, and feel brave.

There is this advantage about German beer: it does not make a man drunk as the word drunk is understood in England. There is nothing objectionable about him; he is simply tired. He does not want to talk; he wants to be let alone, to go to sleep; it does not matter where— anywhere.

Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noble longings and of noble strivings! And oh, these wise, clever days when we know that money is the only prize worth striving for, when we believe in nothing else but meanness and lies, when we care for no living creature but ourselves!

In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each member of the crew that he is doing everything. 

Such is life; and we are but as grass that is cut down, and put into the oven and baked.

Before we had washed them, they had been very, very dirty, it is true; but they were just wearable.  After we had washed them—well, the river between Reading and Henley was much cleaner, after we had washed our clothes in it, than it was before.  All the dirt contained in the river between Reading and Henley, we collected, during that wash, and worked it into our clothes.

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.

La mancanza di senape rattristò l'equipaggio. Mangiammo il nostro manzo in silenzio. La vita ci sembrava vuota e insignificante.

No man alive has more sound commonsense than I have, if only I were capable of listening to myself. Do

Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!

Oh, please could you spare us a little water?" "Certainly," replied the old gentleman; "take as much as you want, and leave the rest." "Thank you so much," murmured George, looking about him.  "Where—where do you keep it?" "It's always in the same place my boy," was the stolid reply: "just behind you.

Man, if he would live, must worship. He looks around, and what to him, within the vision of his life, is the greatest and the best, that he falls down and does reverence to.

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

Each person has what he doesn't want, and other people have what he does want.

J?dom?, ka tas visp?r ir dabas likums. Katram cilv?kam ir tas, ko vi?š negrib, toties citiem ir tas, p?c k? vi?š ilgojas.

We shall never be content until each man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself.

Only those who have worn the crown of suffering can look upon that wondrous light; and they, when they return, may not speak of it, or tell the mystery they know. Once

George got out his banjo after supper, and wanted to play it, but Harris objected: he said he had got a headache, and did not feel strong enough to stand it.  George thought the music might do him good—said music often soothed the nerves and took away a headache; and he twanged two or three notes, just to show Harris what it was like. Harris said he would rather have the headache.