Top Leo Rosten Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Leo Rosten Biography

Leo Calvin Rosten (April 11, 1908 – February 19, 1997) was an American humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism, and Yiddish lexicography. He was also a political scientist interested especially in the relationship of politics and the media.

Read about Leo Rosten in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Leo Rosten Quotes

The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.

Happy, Kindness, Matter, Purpose, Thoughtful

The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.

Fellow, Gets, Laughing, Laughs, Luck, May

Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.

Acting, Actors, Deception, Mesmerize

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

Grow, Heart, Lost, Philosophical, Sight, Warns

For some not to be martyrs is martyrdom indeed.

Martyr, Martyrdom, Martyrs

Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? Those who seek the folly of unrelieved 'happiness'-who fear moods, who shun solitude, who do not know the diginity of occasional depression-can find bliss easily enough: in tranquilizing pills, or in senility. The purpose of life is not to be happy.

Know, Meaning Of Life, Pain, Pills, Solitude

Many [of the Americans] polled showed a marked disapproval of the Wallonians, Danerians, and Pirenians. The fact that these minorities were invented by the pollster did not diminish the hostility.

Disapproval, Facts, Marked, Minorities, Pollster, Showed

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Affectionate, Communication, Humor, Insight, Play

The hardest part of growing up is learning how to wait

Growing, Growing Up, Inspiration, Part, Wait, Waiting

If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong.

Figure, Firsts, Stop, Succeed, Trying

In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.

Book, Capacity, Dark, Fear, Folly, Hear

Why did God give me two ears and one mouth? So that I will hear more and talk less.

Ears, Giving, God, Hear, Talk, Two

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

Help, Helping, Professional, Story Writers, Writer, Writing

Where there is too much, something is missing.

Missing, Too Much

Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.

Capacity, Confront, Courage, Imagined, Inspirational

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.

Cruel, Life, Love, Relationship, Strong, Weak

The first printed mention of bagels. . . is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland, for the year 1610 which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth.

Community, Food, Mention, Regulations, Year, Years

I sometimes think there is a dimension beyond the four of experience and Einstein: insight, that fifth dimension which promises to liberate us from bondage to the long, imperfect past

Dimension, Experience, Imperfect, Long, Past, Thinking

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

Business, Firsts, Hire, People

There was no answer, no solution, no sop, no deliverance. What, then, did I do? I read faster.

Answers, Book, Faster, Read, Reading, Sop

1