Jerome K. Jerome Quotes

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.

One we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences, we can enjoy the best things in life.

If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.

We drink [to] one another's health and spoil our own.

We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment.

In the future there are going to be no pretty girls, for the simple reason there will be no plain girls against which to contrast them. Of late I have done some systematic reading of ladies papers. The plain girl submits to a course of "treatment." In eighteen months she bursts upon Society an acknowledged beauty.

Cultivate a sense of humour. From a humorous point of view this lunch is rather good.

I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination

Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their way, but we, poor mortals, in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company.

Life will always remain a gamble, with prizes sometimes for the imprudent, and blanks so often to the wise.

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.

It takes 3 girls to tow always; two to hold the rope, and the other one runs round and round, and giggles.

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

"Not sure," he retorted; "you call yourself a journalist, and admit there is a subject under Heaven of which you are not sure!"

Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.

A glass of wine often makes me a better man than hearing a sermon.

After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don't let it stand more than three minutes,) it says to the brain, "Now, rise, and show your strength. 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!

When a man or woman loves to brood over a sorrow and takes care to keep it green in their memory, you may be sure it is no longer a pain to them.

Five thousand people in one society might do something, but five thousand societies of one member each would be a holy trouble.

There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet - except in dreams.

It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.

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

I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

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.

Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago,“ has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday.

Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it.

It is well we cannot see into the future. There are few boys of fourteen who would not feel ashamed of themselves at forty.

Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself.

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.

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.

Eat good dinners and drink good wine; read good novels if you have the leisure and see good plays; fall in love, if there is no reason why you should not fall in love; but do not pore over influenza statistics.

Conceit is the finest armour a man can wear.

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.

A Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull.

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

Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.

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.

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. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous - almost of pedantic - veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.

I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

The world must be rather a rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike them, and as for themselves, they hate each other most cordially.

We want everything. All the happiness that earth and heaven are capable of bestowing. Creature comforts, and heart and soul comforts also; and, proud-spirited beings that we are, we will not be put off with a part. Give us only everything, and we will be content. And, after all, Cinderella, you have had your day. Some little dogs never get theirs. You must not be greedy. You have KNOWN happiness. The palace was Paradise for those few months, and the Prince's arms were about you, Cinderella, the Prince's kisses on your lips; the gods themselves cannot take THAT from you.

There are many families where the whole interest of life is centered upon the dog.

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick - on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.

Give an average baby a fair chance, and if it doesn't do something it oughtn't to a doctor should be called in at once.

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.

In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings a year! It is not worth it!