2nd May: Jerome K Jerome

Jerome K Jerome, English novelist and playwright, was born on this date in 1859, His most famous book was Three Men in a Boat.

1. Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
2. It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.
3. I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
4. What I am looking for is a blessing not in disguise.
5. It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
6. After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don't let it stand more than three minutes,) it says to the brain, "Now, rise, and show your strength. 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!
7. Life is a thing to be lived, not spent; to be faced, not ordered. Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of.
8. Eat good dinners and drink good wine; read good novels if you have the leisure and see good plays; fall in love, if there is no reason why you should not fall in love; but do not pore over influenza statistics.
9. We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without.
10. Then we discussed the food question. George said: “Begin with breakfast.” (George is so practical). “Now, for breakfast we shall want a frying pan.” (Harris said it was indigestible; but we merely urged him not to be an ass, and George went on)...