Evan Esar Quotes

Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.

Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration,and inspiration.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - and Jill a wealthy widow.

The mint makes it first, it is up to you to make it last.

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.

Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind.

This may be the age of automation, but love is still being made by hand.

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.

Nothing ages your car as much as the sight of your neighbor's new one.

Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space.

The only place where you can find equality is in the cemetery.

You are not fully dressed until you wear a smile.

The honeymoon is the only period when a woman isn't trying to reform her husband.

The car was invented as a convenient place to sit out traffic jams

There are two kinds of leaders: those who are interested in the flock, and those who are interested in the fleece.

A vacation is like love - anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort, and remembered with nostalgia.

Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.

A husband may forget where he went on his honeymoon, but he never forgets why.

Experience is a great teacher, and sometimes a pretty teacher is a great experience.

The best time to give advice to your children is while they're still young enough to believe you know what you're talking about.

If you can't bear to have your face stepped on, don't try to climb the ladder of success.

Definition of a Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits than under analysis some of them won't stand up either.

In a democracy, you believe it or not; in a dictatorship, you believe it or else.

Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.

When you make your mark in the world, watch out for the envious with erasers.

Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something more insulting than if you spoke right out at once.

Hope is tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment.

The best way to spoil a good story is by sticking to the facts.

Hindsight is good, foresight is better; but second sight is best of all.

An expert is someone who takes something you already know and makes it sound confusing.

If it required some effort to go from today to tomorrow, some people would always remain in yesterday.

If you want to be successful, you must either have a chance or take one.

The lazy man claims he is too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work.

Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.

A word to the wise is -- unnecessary.

Compare what you want with what you have, and you'll be unhappy; compare what you deserve with what you have, and you'll be happy.

Egocentricity: The vanity that makes you wonder what people are thinking about you when they are really wondering what you are thinking about them.

Walking isn't a lost art: one must, by some means, get to the garage.

Adam and Eve were the first of all unions to defy management.

The difference between us and other people is that their money looks bigger and their troubles smaller.

Under dictatorship, the people in prison are always superior to the people who put them there.

There's only one thing worse than to live without working, and that is to work without living.

Women diet to retain their girlish figures or their boyish husbands.

The Lord takes care of his own, but church trustees still put lightning rods on the steeple.

Etymology: from Latin ad-, "to" + visum, past participle of videre, "to see". Advice is what you get from your parents when you are growing up, and from your children when you are growing old.

There would be no population explosion if people who are trying to keep the wolf from the door wouldn't let the stork fly in through the window.

If you don't like to make excuses or apologies, stop making promises.

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.

Some couples divorce because of a misunderstandin g; others, because they understand each other too well.

A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name.