
“The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.”
Source: Walden and Other Writings
“The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.”
Source: Walden and Other Writings
“104. Leave jesting while it pleaseth, lest it turne to earnest.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
“As my mother once said: The boys throw stones at the frogs in jest.
But the frogs die in earnest.”
Part 8, Chapter 10 (p. 196)
Source: Fiction, The Female Man (1975)
“We may, indeed, indulge in sport and jest, but in the same way as we enjoy sleep or other relaxations, and only when we have satisfied the claims of our earnest, serious task.”
Ludo autem et ioco uti illo quidem licet, sed sicut somno et quietibus ceteris tum, cum gravibus seriisque rebus satis fecerimus.
Book I, section 103
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)
“Irony is jesting hidden behind gravity. Humor is gravity concealed behind the jest.”
Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare: Twelve essays (1876), p. 63.
“There is no jesting with edge tools.”
Act IV, scene vii.
The Little French Lawyer (c. 1619–23; published 1647)