Evan Esar Quotes

A bureaucrat is an official who is clothed with power and whom it doesn't fit.

Children grow out of childhood, but parents never grow out of parenthood.

Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.

Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something more insulting than if you spoke right out at once.

A special skill, like speaking several languages, or keeping your mouth shut in one.

Many a woman would get a divorce if she could do it without making her husband happy.

[Statistics] The science that can prove everything except the usefulness of statistics.

All work and no pay makes a housewife.

A creature that never cries over spilt milk: a cat.

Compare what you want with what you have, and you'll be unhappy; compare what you deserve with what you have, and you'll be happy.

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.

Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration,and inspiration.

Egocentric: A person who has his I's too close together.

If you can't bear to have your face stepped on, don't try to climb the ladder of success.

Hindsight is good, foresight is better; but second sight is best of all.

A smart mother suggests that her child bring an apple to his teacher; a smarter mother suggests that he bring a couple of aspirins.

A bacteriologist is a man whose conversation always start with the germ of an idea.

Some people would never get any exercise at all if they didn't have to walk to their cars.

Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.

There would be no population explosion if people who are trying to keep the wolf from the door wouldn't let the stork fly in through the window.

The best time to give advice to your children is while they're still young enough to believe you know what you're talking about.

Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.

The three chief causes of divorce are men, women, and marriage.

[Statistics] Fiction in its most uninteresting form.

Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.

Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind.

A hamburger by any other name costs twice as much.

A girl never cares who casts the first stone at her -- as long as it's a diamond

A husband is like a fire. He goes out when unattended.

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.

The best way to spoil a good story is by sticking to the facts.

Etymology: from Latin ad-, "to" + visum, past participle of videre, "to see". Advice is what you get from your parents when you are growing up, and from your children when you are growing old.

Canada's climate is nine months winter and three months late in the fall.

Lecturers should remember that the capacity of the mind to absorb is limited to what the seat can endure.

The tongue is the only muscle in the human body that never gets tired [talking].

The word impossible is peculiar because if you examine it closely, you'll find that most of it is possible.

Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.

Bureaucracy is more people doing less things, and taking more time to do them worse.

The secret of successful writing lies in striking the right keys on the typewriter.