Only The Insane Take Themselves Seriously.

Reverence Is A Good Thing, And Part Of Its Value Is That The More We Revere A Man, The More Sharply Are We Struck By Anything In Him (and There Is Always Much) That Is Incongruous With His Greatness.

It Distresses Me, This Failure To Keep Pace With The Leaders Of Thought, As They Pass Into Oblivion.

There Is Laughter That Goes So Far As To Lose All Touch With Its Motive, And To Exist Only, Grossly, In Itself. This Is Laughter At Its Best. A Man To Whom Such Laughter Has Often Been Granted May Happen To Die In A Work-house. No Matter. I Will Not Admit That He Has Failed In Life. Another Man, Who Has Never Laughed Thus, May Be Buried In Westminster Abbey, Leaving More Than A Million Pounds Overhead. What Then? I Regard Him As A Failure.

In Every Human Being One Or The Other Of These Two Instincts Is Predominant: The Active Or Positive Instinct To Offer Hospitality, The Negative Or Passive Instinct To Accept It. And Either Of These Instincts Is So Significant Of Character That One Might As Well Say That Mankind Is Divisible Into Two Great Classes: Hosts And Guests.

Has The Gift Of Laughter Been Withdrawn From Me? I Protest That I Do Still, At The Age Of Forty-seven, Laugh Often And Loud And Long. But Not, I Believe, So Long And Loud And Often As In My Less Smiling Youth. And I Am Proud, Nowadays, Of Laughing, And Grateful To Any One Who Makes Me Laugh. That Is A Bad Sign. I No Longer Take Laughter As A Matter Of Course.