Quotes by Finley Peter Dunne

“The world is not growing worse and it is not growing better -- it is just turning around as usual.”

“Stories are meant to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”

“Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflic...”

“Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals.”

“The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here.”

“The only good husbands stay bachelors: They're too considerate to get married.”

“Trust everybody, but cut the cards.”

“There are no friends at cards or world politics.”

“One of the strangest things about life is that the poor, who need the money the most, are the ones that never have it.”

“Th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf.Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure.But th' shelf is th' main thing.”

“Many a man that couldn't direct ye to th' drug store on th' corner when he was thirty will get a respectful hearin' when age has further impaired his mind.”

“I see gr-reat changes takin' place ivry day but no change at all ivry fifty years.”

“You can lead a man up to the university but you can't make him think.”

“No matter whether the Constitution follows the flag or not the Supreme Court follows the election returns.”

“An appeal is when ye ask wan court to show its contempt for another court.”

“It is more comfortable to feel that we are a slight improvement on a monkey than such a fallin' off fr'm th' angels.”

“What is instinct? It is the natural tendency in one when filled with dismay to turn to his wife.”

“A man's idee in a card game is war- crool devastatin' and pitiless. A lady's idee iv it is a combynation iv larceny embezzlement an' burglary.”

“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

“Opportunity knocks at every man's door once. On some men's door it hammers till it breaks down the door and then it goes in and wakes him up if he's asleep and ever afterward it works for him as a...”