Top 140 Jerome K. Jerome Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

102. “And when they reached St. Albans, there would be that wretched couple, kissing under the Abbey walls. Then these folks would go and be pirates until the marriage was over.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

103. “Noi eravamo come i cavalieri dell’antica leggenda, che veleggiavano lungo un mistico lago verso l’ignoto regno del crepuscolo, verso la sconfinata terra del tramonto. Ma non arrivammo nella terra del tramonto, andammo a finire contro il barchino da pesca sul quale stavano pescando i tre vecchi.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

104. “Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

105. “I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

106. “The odour of Burgundy, and the smell of French sauces, and the sight of clean napkins and long loaves, knocked as a very welcome visitor at the door of our inner man.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

107. “Be not the first by whom the new is tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside,” is a safe rule for those who would always retain the good opinion of that all-powerful, but somewhat unintelligent, incubus, “the average person,” but the pioneer, the guide, is necessary. That is, if the world is to move forward.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

108. “If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

109. “There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas – something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

110. “Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself. It wants the whole boat to itself. It goes through the hamper, and gives a cheesy flavour to everything else there.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

111. “Affection will burn cheerily when the white flame of love is flickered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed from day to day and be piled up ever higher as the wintry years draw nigh.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

112. “She rode a bicycle. It was unwomanly, then, to ride a bicycle. There were so many things, in those days, that were unwomanly to do. It must have been quite difficult to be a woman, and remain so day after day.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

113. “Too much of anything is a mistake, as the man said when his wife presented him with four new healthy children in one day. We should practice moderation in all matters.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

114. “One example of a solid but inexplicable fact, ruling all human affairs – your fireworks won’t go off while the crowd is around.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

115. “Foolish people... When I say foolish people in this contemptuous way, I mean people who entertain different opinions to mine. If there’s one person I do despise more than another, it’s the man who doesn’t think exactly the same on all topics as I do.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

116. “We, in this age, do not see the beauty of that dog. We are too familiar with it. It is like the sunset and stars: we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common to our eyes. So it is with that china dog.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

117. “Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noble longings and of noble strivings! And oh, these wise, clever days when we know that money is the only prize worth striving for, when we believe in nothing else but meanness and lies, when we care for no living creature but ourselves!”

— Jerome K. Jerome

118. “Nothing is easier to write than scenery; nothing more difficult and unnecessary to read.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

119. “There are many families where the whole interest of life is centered upon the dog.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

120. “I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

121. “It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

122. “Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their own way, but we, poor mortals in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

123. “The more we peeled, the more peel there seemed to be left on; by the time we had got all the peel off and all the eyes out, there was no potato left – at least none worth speaking of.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

124. “I could not conjure up one melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop and a glass of champagne.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

125. “Ambition is only vanity ennobled.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

126. “Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature and into life; spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!”

— Jerome K. Jerome

127. “Cultivate,” I said, “a sense of humor. From a humorous point of view this lunch is rather good.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

128. “There are the goods; if you want them, you can have them. If you do not want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about them.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

129. “The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained faces up to hers, and smiles; and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

130. “We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own; and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father – a noble, pious man.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

131. “There was a time, long ago, when I used to clamour for the hard work: now I like to give the youngsters a chance.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

132. “Weather in towns is like a skylark in a counting-house-out of place and in the way.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

133. “It is in the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest of existence lies.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

134. “It must have been worth while having a mere ordinary plague now and then in London to get rid of both the lawyers and the Parliament.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

135. “I respect the truth too much to drag it out on every occasion.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

136. “The more the other party thinks he’s having his way, the easier always to get your own.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

137. “It’s really extraordinary what a variety of ways of loving there must be. We all do it as it was never done before.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

138. “Idling has always been my strong point.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

139. “I had a tame rat when I was a boy, and I loved that animal as only a boy would love an old water-rat.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

140. “One of the problems of social life is to know what to say to one another when we meet; every man and woman’s desire is to appear sympathetic and clever, and this makes conversation difficult, because, taking us all round, we are neither sympathetic nor clever.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

141. “We had just commenced the third course – the bread and jam – when a gentleman in shirt-sleeves and a short pipe came along, and wanted to know if we knew that we were trespassing. We said we hadn’t given the matter sufficient consideration as yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, but that, if he assured us on his word as a gentleman that we were trespassing, we would, without further hesitation, believe it.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

142. “No man alive has more sound commonsense than I have, if only I were capable of listening to myself. Do.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

143. “Night’s heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but the angels of God.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

144. “Let us have done with vain regrets and longings for the days that never will be ours again. Our work lies in front, not behind us; and “Forward!” is our motto.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

145. “They took him to Wagner festivals and Burne-Jones’s private views. They read him all the minor poets. They booked seats for him at all Ibsen’s plays. They introduced him into all the most soulful circles of artistic society. His days were one long feast of other people’s enjoyments.”

— Jerome K. Jerome

146. “In my youth, the question chiefly important to me was – What sort of man shall I decide to be? At nineteen one asks oneself this question; at thirty-nine we say, “I wish Fate hadn’t made me this sort of man.”

— Jerome K. Jerome