Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Quote of the Day (W. C. Fields, on Horse Sense)


“Horse sense is a good judgment which keeps horses from betting on people.” — Attributed to comic actor W. C. Fields (1880-1946) in Nigel Rees, Cassell Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1999)

Though he came to prominence on the vaudeville circuit as a juggler and appeared in silent films (with a clip-on moustache), it is impossible now to think of W.C. Fields—born on this day in 1880 in Philadelphia—as anything but a product of the sound era. It was marvelously nasal, the better to convey how cynical but woebegone his characters could be, beset as they were by whiny children, attention-seeking dogs, and shrewish wives.

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