A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transm...itted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it ... try to fake three laughs in an hour--ha ha ha ha ha--they'll t...ake you away, man. You can't.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically--for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. Tha...t may seem mildly shocking to a moralist--but then what isn't?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In most cases an act of unwelcome sex is no more bother than being vaccinated, so there's no point going on about it as if it were... a fate worse than death. With skill and good manners you can avoid having to make the sacrifice, but should you find yourself in a compromising situation largely of your own making, you should stop defending your virtue and start worrying about your maturity. It will give you something to think about while the savage pumper bangs away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Manners aim to facilitate life, to get rid of impediments, and bring the man pure to energize. They aid our dealing and conversati...on, as a railway aids travelling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road, and leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet, by the moral quality radiating from his countenance, he ma...y abolish all considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Comedy is an intellectual affair, and deals chiefly with logic. Tragedy is an emotional affair, and deals chiefly with value. Hora...ce Walpole once said that "life is a comedy to the man who thinks and a tragedy to the man who feels." Comedy is negative; it is a criticism of limitations and an unwillingness to accept them. Tragedy is positive; it is an uncritical acceptance of the positive content of that which is delimited. Since comedy deals with the limitations of actual situations and tragedy with their positive content, comedy must ridicule and tragedy must endorse.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The difference between tragedy and comedy is the difference between experience and intuition. In the experience we strive against ...every condition of our animal life: against death, against the frustration of ambition, against the instability of human love. In the intuition we trust the arduous eccentricities we're born to, and see the oddness of a creature who has never got acclimatized to being created.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Comedy naturally wears itself out--destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the folli...es and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »