Finley Peter Dunne Quotes

A man can be right and president, but he can't be both at the same time.

Histhry is a post-mortem examination. It tellsye what a counthry died iv. But I'd like to know what it lived iv.

A rayformer thinks he was ilicted because he was a rayformer, whin th thruth iv th matther is he was ilicted because no wan knew him.

When the American people get through with the English language, it will look as if it had been run over by a musical comedy.

The wise people are in New York because the foolish went there first, that's the way the wise men make a living.

Work is work if you're paid to do it, and it's a pleasure if you pay to be allowed to do it.

You can lade a man up to th' university, but ye can't make him think.

Vice is a creature of such hideous mien ... that the more you see it the better you like it.

Vice goes along way towards making life bearable. A little vice now and then is relished by the best of men.

The Puritans gave thanks for being preserved from the Indians, and we give thanks for being preserved from the Puritans.

Don't jump on a man unless he is down.

It is more comfortable to feel that we are a slight improvement on a monkey than such a fallin' off from the angels.

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

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.

Meditation is a gift confined to unknown philosophers and cows. Others don't begin to think till they begin to talk or write.

A Mormon is a man that has the bad taste and the religion to do what a good many other people are restrained from doing by conscientious scruples and the police.

It don't make much difference what you study, so long as you don't like it.

A man's idea in a game of cards is war, cruel, devastating, and pitiless. A lady's idea of it is a combination of larceny, embezzlement and burglary.

Most vegetarians I ever see looked enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.

A firm belief atthracts facts. They come out iv holes in the ground an' cracks in th' wall to support belief, but they run away fr'm doubt.

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, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward.

High finance isn't burglary or obtaining money by false pretenses, but rather a judicious selection from the best features of those fine arts.

When 'tis an aven thing in th' prayin', may th' best man win ... an' th' best man will win.

I niver knew a pollytician to go wrong ontil he's been contaminated by contact with a business man.

Alcohol is necessary for a man so that he can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed be the facts.

That is, no matther whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme coort follows th' iliction returns.

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

Politics ain't beanbag: 'tis a man's game, and women, children 'n' pro-hy-bitionists had best stay out of it.

A lie with a purpose is one of the worst kind, and the most profitable.

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.

If ye live enough befure thirty ye won't care to live at all afther fifty.

There ain't any news in being good. You might write the doings of all the convents of the world on the back of a postage stamp, and have room to spare.

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