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The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.

Lionel Strachey (1864–1927)

Odd Ideas

TO be fashionable, either in this world or the next, you must belong to the minority—that is, the best people.

The only life to be endured for ever would be one of unfulfilled desires. Therefore pray for descent after death: in that place never a single wish will be gratified. Paradise itself offers no such inducement.

Who says marriage is a failure? It is nothing of the kind—provided you let it alone.

To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretences but your own.

A law is a caprice of the majority.

Any woman in the world—even a nun—would rather lose her virtue than her reputation.

Statistics are mendacious truths.

“The English,” said Napoleon, “are a nation of shop-keepers.” Their cousins, the Americans, are a nation of commercial travellers.

Americans guess because they are in too great a hurry to think.

A “brilliant epigram” is a solemn platitude gone to a masquerade ball.

When humour is meant to be taken seriously, it’s no joke.