“For, though the subject deals with a serious problem of the hour, it can be treated, and is treated, with a very permissible humour that just stops short of farce.”

A working rule for joking about grave public matters · Theatre notice, Punch, 16 December 1914

• Humour
• Moderation
• Theatre

“I should indeed be ungrateful if after an entertainment so smoothly and dexterously administered I were to be captious about origins or other matters of pedantry.”

A critic declining to nitpick a well-made evening's work · Theatre notice, Punch, 16 December 1914

• Courtesy
• Criticism
• Theatre

“A pessimist is a man who tells the truth prematurely.”

A wry reflection on how timing can make unwelcome realism seem like pessimism; the attribution is commonly reported but the original source is unclear. · Quotation attributed to Owen Seaman

• Pessimism
• Timing
• Truth