The order of the world is always right--such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, th...e way the Cheshire Cat left his grin.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are too many coy books full of talking animals, whimsical children, and condescending adults. (Some of the most famous anima...ls in the world have talked, but they talked real talk and they weren't called silly names like Doody and Mooloo. They were called names like The Cheshire Cat and they asked sensible questions like "Did you say pig, or fig?")LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Wit is a lean creature with sharp inquiring nose, whereas humor has a kindly eye and a comfortable girth. Wit, if it be necessary,... uses malice to score a point--like a cat it is quick to jump--but humor keeps the peace in an easy chair. Wit has a better voice in a solo, but humor comes into the chorus best. Wit is as sharp as a stroke of lightning, whereas humor is diffuse like sunlight. Wit keeps the season's fashions and is precise in the phrases and judgments of the day, but humor is concerned with homely eternal things. Wit wears silk, but humor in homely-spun endures the wind. Wit sets a snare, whereas humor goes off whistling without a victim in its mind. Wit is sharper company at the table, but humor serves better in mischance and in the rain. When it tumbles wit is sour, but humor goes uncomplaining without its dinner. Humor laughs at another's jest and holds its sides, while wit sits wrapped in study for a lively answer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school,... preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not "studying a profession," for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I think I noticed once T'was morning one sole street-lamp still bright-lit,... Which, with a senile grin, like an old dunce, Vied the blue sky, and tried to rival it....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sexes deceive themselves about one another: the reason being that at bottom they honor and love only themselves (or their own ...ideal, to express it more agreeably). Thus man wants woman to be peaceable--but woman is essentially, like the cat, not peaceable, however well she may have trained herself to assume the appearance of peace.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it--and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits ...down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again--and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »