Henry B. Adams was the first in an infinite series to discover and admit to himself that he really did not care whether truth was,... or was not, true. He did not even care that it should be proved true, unless the process were new and amusing. He was a Darwinian for fun.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four, b...esides being very amusing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Good writing is always a breaking of the soil, clearing away prejudices, pulling up of sour weeds of crooked thinking, stripping t...he turf so as to get at what is fertile beneath. It would be amusing to carry the simile further. Those bulbs that flower in the sand and wither! The gay fiction annual that has to be planted again every year! Those experimental plants from Russia, France, and Greenwich Village that are always getting winter killed--confound 'em!--is it worth while planting them again? The stocky perennial that keeps coming up and coming up--so easy to grow and so ugly. Scarlet sage that gives a touch of fiery sin to the edge of the suburbanite's concrete walk! And then the good flowers--as honest as they are beautiful! The well-ordered gar den! The climbing rose that escapes and is the most beautiful of all!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I can think of many amusing parallels. For example, "the Borough of ... announces: Miss Jones, the splendid principal of our gramm...ar school, has been offered the position of cook and housekeeper by the family next door, and so we feel obliged to dismiss her and make room for one of the young girls just graduated from training college. Miss Jones may not care to be a cook but since she has that privilege we don't think it right for her to continue to teach, valuable as her services are to the community." Or, "the Educational Committee of ... Borough has adopted a rule to employ no more men teachers who have vegetable gardens, and to notify those men now in its employ who possess vegetable gardens or are contemplating acquiring one that they will be dismissed. We are actuated by the following reasons: (1) The place of a man with a vegetable garden is at home working in his garden. (2) We feel, as a general rule, that a man with a vegetable garden will, to some extent, suffer in his efficiency as a teacher. We have no evidence of this; in fact the vegetable gardeners whom we are about to dismiss are among our best teachers, but nevertheless, we feel that as a general policy our rule is sound from an educational standpoint. (3) A man with a garden will not starve. Therefore, it is unfair to continue paying him a salary as a teacher while men who have no vegetable gardens are waiting for posts [ellipses in original].LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I shall not want Society in Heaven, Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;... Her anecdotes will be more amusing Than Pipit's experience could provide.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digg...ing, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilirating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the sa...me time. In my diary I treat all the privations as amusing. I have made up my mind now to lead a different life from other girls and, later on, different from ordinary housewives. My start has been so very full of interest, and that is the sole reason why I have to laugh at the humorous side of the most dangerous moments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... if a person is to be unconventional, he must be amusing or he is intolerable: for, in the nature of the case, he guarantees yo...u nothing but amusement. He does not guarantee you any of the little amenities by which society has assured itself that, if it must go to sleep, it will at least sleep in a comfortable chair.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Filipino recruits arriving on Hawaiian plantations were almost exclusively single or without their wives. The summer of 1925 about... thirty thousand Filipino men were working on the Hawaiian sugar plantations, and fewer than three hundred Filipino women had been brought over. ... there was one amusing feature about the disproportion of the sexes. It was one of the few situations I have ever witnessed where the scarcity value of woman permitted her to be cavalierly indifferent to male domination.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »