The world's wit and humor: an encyclopedia of the classic wit and humor of all ages and nations, Volume 14

Front Cover
Lionel Strachey
Review of reviews Company, 1906 - Wit and humor
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 146 - The most dangerous foe to truth and freedom in our midst is the compact majority.
Page 128 - Now some time had elapsed, and the nestlings had grown so large that they could stand upright in the nest and look far around ; and the Father-Stork came every day with delicious frogs, little snakes, and all kinds of stork-dainties as he found them. Oh! it looked funny when he performed feats before them ! He laid his head quite back upon his tail, and clapped with his beak as if he had been a little clapper; and then he told them stories, all about the marshes. " Listen ! now you must learn to...
Page 37 - you could just slightly open every letter which comes in and goes out of your office, and read it (for the public benefit, you know), to see if it contains any kind of information against me, or only ordinary correspondence? If it is all right, you can seal it up again; or simply deliver the letter opened.
Page 71 - And with her tutor wished to run away : I threatened curses and pronounced my ban; She yielded, and espoused a rich old man. Their house was splendid, brimming o'er with wealth...
Page 132 - TOP and a little Ball were together in a drawer among some other toys ; and the Top said to the Ball, " Shall we not be bridegroom and bride, as we live together in the same box...
Page 126 - And he went on standing on one leg. Below in the street a whole crowd of children were playing ; and when they caught sight of the Storks, one of the boldest of the boys, and afterwards all of them, sang the old verse about the storks.
Page 148 - And truths so stricken in years are always shockingly thin ; yet it's not till then that the majority takes them up and recommends them to society as wholesome food. I can assure you there's not much nutriment in that sort of fare ; you may take my word as a doctor for that. All these majority-truths are like last year's salt pork ; they're like rancid, mouldy ham, producing all the moral scurvy that devastates society.
Page 131 - What I have thought of will be the best. I know the pond in which all the little mortals lie till the Stork comes and brings them to their parents. The pretty little babies lie there and dream so sweetly as they never dream afterward. All parents are glad to have such a child, and all children want to have a sister or a brother. Now we will fly to the pond, and bring one for each of the children who have not sung the naughty song and laughed at the Storks.
Page 148 - ... it's that, I say, that's poisoning the sources of our spiritual life, and making a plague-spot of the ground beneath our feet. HOVSTAD. And you make this charge against the great, independent majority, just because they have the sense to accept only certain and acknowledged truths? DR. STOCKMANN. Ah, my dear Mr. Hovstad, don't talk about certain truths! The truths acknowledged by the masses, the multitude, were certain truths to the vanguard in our grandfathers
Page 287 - Oh! no, to be sure I will not.' But he tied him as tight as ever he could, and then told him to try and get loose. The Lion tried and tried in vain — he could not get loose. Then Ananzi thought, now is my chance; so he got a big stick and beat him, and then went away and left him, for he was afraid to loose him lest he should kill him. Now there was a woman called Miss Nancy, who was going out one morning to get some 'callalou' (spinach) in the wood, and as she was going, she heard some one say,...

Bibliographic information