Stephen Leacock
Overview
 
Stephen Butler Leacock, FRSC
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

 (30 December 1869 – 28 March 1944) was an English-born Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 teacher, political scientist, writer, and humorist. In the early part of the 20th century he was the best-known humorist in the English-speaking world.
Leacock was born in Swanmore
Swanmore
Swanmore is a small rural village and civil parish situated in the Meon Valley, Hampshire, England. It is very near to Bishop's Waltham.Swanmore houses the schools Swanmore Primary School and Swanmore College of Technology which is the secondary school for neighbouring towns and villages. The...

, near Bishop's Waltham
Bishop's Waltham
Bishop's Waltham is a small town in Hampshire, England situated at the head of the River Hamble. It is home to the ruins of Bishop's Waltham Palace, an English Heritage monument.-History:...

, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and at the age of six moved to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 with his family, which settled on a farm in Egypt, Ontario, near the village of Sutton
Sutton, Ontario
Sutton is a suburban community located nearly 2 km south of Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada. The community was formerly a village but is now part of the Town of Georgina after amalgamation with it and North Gwillimbury in 1971.-Geography and information:...

 and the shores of Lake Simcoe
Lake Simcoe
Lake Simcoe is a lake in Southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province, after Lake Nipigon, Lac Seul, and Lake Nipissing. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century the lake was called Ouentironk by the Huron natives...

.
Quotations

Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

"Gertrude the Governess", Nonsense Novels (1911)

Presently I shall be introduced as 'this venerable old gentleman' and the axe will fall when they raise me to the degree of 'grand old man'. That means on our continent any one with snow-white hair who has kept out of jail till eighty.

On achieving fame in Canada.

The Lord said "Let there be wheat" and Saskatchewan was born.

My Discovery of America (1937)

With the thermometer at 30 below zero and the wind behind him, a man walking on Main Street in Winnipeg knows which side of him is which.

My Discovery of the West (1937)

I detest life-insurance agents: they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so.

s:Insurance up to Date|Insurance up to Date

It takes a good deal of physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have. I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as required.

s:Reflections on Riding|Reflections on Riding

You know, many a man realizes late in life that if when he was a boy he had known what he knows now, instead of being what he is he might be what he won't; but how few boys stop to think that if they knew what they don't know instead of being what they will be, they wouldn't be?

The rushing of his spirit from its prison-house was as rapid as a hunted cat passing over a garden fence.

 
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