“The matter was too serious for any treatment but a joke, and joking made it more serious still.”

— Henry Adams, Esther (1884), Ch. 7

About Henry Adams

1838 – 1918

American historian and writer, author of 'The Education of Henry Adams', which won the Pulitzer Prize after his death.

“Friends are born, not made.”

“One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.”

“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.”

“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

“If a man could half his wishes he would double his troubles.”

“Wit is cultured insolence.”

“Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter.”

“A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.”

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.”