Quotations by:
    Jerome, Jerome K.


There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clock that is always right — except when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock could be in a civilized country.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“Clocks,” Diary of a Pilgrimage, and Six Other Essays (1891)
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Added on 29-Jan-24 | Last updated 29-Jan-24
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There have been a good many funny things said and written about hardupishness, but the reality is not funny, for all that. It is not funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn’t funny to be thought mean and stingy. It isn’t funny to be shabby and to be ashamed of your address. No, there is nothing at all funny in poverty — to the poor.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“On Being Hard Up,” Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
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Added on 6-Sep-12 | Last updated 15-Jan-24
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It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.

jerome idleness like kisses to be sweet must be stolen wist.info quote

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“On Being Idle,” Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
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Added on 2-Jul-09 | Last updated 12-Feb-24
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It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“On Cats and Dogs,” The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1889)
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Added on 1-Jan-15 | Last updated 22-Jan-24
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Yes, poor doggie, you are very stupid, very stupid indeed, compared with us clever men, who understand all about politics and philosophy, and who know everything in short, except what we are, and where we came from, and whither we are going, and what everything outside this tiny world and most things in it are.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“On Cats and Dogs,” The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1889)
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Added on 18-Dec-23 | Last updated 18-Dec-23
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If you are foolish enough to be contented, don’t show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don’t you won’t get any.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“On Getting On In the World,” The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1889)
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Added on 5-Dec-23 | Last updated 5-Dec-23
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After all, vanity is as much a virtue as a vice. It is easy to recite copy-book maxims against its sinfulness, but it is a passion that can move us to good as well as to evil. Ambition is only vanity ennobled. We want to win praise and admiration — or Fame as we prefer to name it — and so we write great books, and paint grand pictures, and sing sweet songs; and toil with willing hands in study, loom, and laboratory.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“On Vanity and Vanities,” The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1889)
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Added on 12-Jul-17 | Last updated 15-Jan-24
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Nothing — so it seems to me — is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The sweet, tender blossom that flowers in the heart of the young — in hearts such as yours — that, too, is beautiful. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of — of things longer.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“Passing of the Third Floor Back” [The Stranger] (1908)
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Added on 5-Feb-24 | Last updated 5-Feb-24
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How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams — waking dreams, I mean — the dreams that we call “castles in the air,” built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey’s nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Dreams
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Added on 1-Nov-12 | Last updated 1-Nov-12
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It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it were men wouldn’t be ashamed of it. It is a blunder, though, and is punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being Hard Up” (1886)
 
Added on 13-Sep-12 | Last updated 13-Sep-12
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When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head — the other man’s head, I mean — then that proved that his — the first fellow’s — girl was a pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke his head — not his own, you know, but the other fellow’s — the other fellow to the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow would only be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who — well, if he broke his head, then his girl — not the other fellow’s, but the fellow who was the — Look here, if A broke B’s head, then A’s girl was a pretty girl; but if B broke A’s head, then A’s girl wasn’t a pretty girl, but B’s girl was. That was their method of conducting art criticism.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being Idle” (1886)
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Added on 19-Feb-24 | Last updated 19-Feb-24
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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. Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin forever and ever and ever if only Edwin had not grown so strange and different. Edwin would have adored Angelina through eternity if Angelina had only remained the same as when he first adored her.
It is a cheerless hour for you both when the lamp of love has gone out and the fire of affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope about in the cold, raw dawn of life to kindle it. God grant it catches light before the day is too far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead coals till night come.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being In Love” (1886)
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Added on 11-Mar-24 | Last updated 11-Mar-24
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Love should be the vestal fire of some mighty temple — some vast dim fane whose organ music is the rolling of the spheres. Affection will burn cheerily when the white flame of love is flickered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed from day to day, and be piled up ever higher as the winter years draw nigh. Old men and women can sit by it with their thin hands clasped, the little children can nestle down in front, the friend and neighbour has his welcome corner by its side, and even shaggy Fido and sleek Titty can toast their noses at the bars.
Let us heap the coals of kindness upon that fire. Throw on your pleasant words, your gentle pressures of the hand, your thoughtful and unselfish deeds. Fan it with good humour, patience, and forbearance. You can let the wind blow and the rain fall unheeded then, for your hearth will be warm and bright, and the faces round it will make sunshine in spite of the clouds without.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being in Love” (1886)
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Added on 18-Mar-24 | Last updated 18-Mar-24
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That is just the way with Memory; nothing that she brings to us is complete. She is a willful child; all her toys are broken. I remember tumbling into a huge dust-hole when a very small boy, but I have not the faintest recollection of ever getting out again; and if memory were all we had to trust to, I should be compelled to believe I was there still.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Memory” (1886)
 
Added on 11-Oct-12 | Last updated 11-Oct-12
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All is vanity and everybody’s vain. Women are terribly vain. So are men — more so, if possible.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Vanity and Vanities” (1886)
 
Added on 27-Sep-12 | Last updated 27-Sep-12
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It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Vanity and Vanities” (1886)
 
Added on 4-Oct-12 | Last updated 4-Oct-12
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Yes, it is always the best policy to speak the truth — unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idler Magazine, “The Idler’s Club” column (1892-02)
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Added on 22-Jan-24 | Last updated 22-Jan-24
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I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Three Men in a Boat, ch. 15 (1889)
 
Added on 25-Oct-12 | Last updated 25-Oct-12
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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.

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Three Men in a Boat, ch. 3 (1889)
 
Added on 18-Oct-12 | Last updated 18-Oct-12
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