It is better in the long run to possess an abscess or a tumor
Than to possess a sense of humor.
People who have senses of humor have a very good time,
But they never accomplish anything of note, either despicable or
sublime,
Because how can anybody accomplish anything immortal
When they realize they look pretty funny doing it and have to stop
to chortle?
Everybody admits that Michelangelo's little things in the Sistine
Chapel are so immortal they have everybody reeling,
But I'll bet he could never have dashed them off if he had
realized how undignified he looked lying up there with his
stomach on the ceiling.
Yes, fatal handicaps in life are fortunately few,
But the most fatal of all is the faculty of seeing the other person's
point of view,
And if your devoted mother suggests that you will some day be rich
and famous, why perish the suggestion;
That is, perish it if you are afflicted with the suspicion that there
are two sides to every question.
Good gracious, how could anybody corner wheat
If they were sissy enough to reflect that they were causing a lot of
other people to be unable to afford to eat?
Look at mayors and congressmen and presidents, always excepting
college presidents, such as Harvard's Conant;
Do you think they could get elected if they admitted even to
themselves that there was anything to be said for their
opponent?
No, no, genius won't get you as far as common everyday
facility
Unless it is accompanied by a conviction of infallibility,
And people who have a sense of humor are extremely gullible,
But not enough so, alas, to believe that they are infullible.