In addition to Greg's answer, I would recommend to set the constructor private so that it is impossible to instantiate the class.
So in my humble opinion this is a more complete example based on Greg's one:
<?php
class Hello
{
/**
* Construct won't be called inside this class and is uncallable from
* the outside. This prevents instantiating this class.
* This is by purpose, because we want a static class.
*/
private function __construct() {}
private static $greeting = 'Hello';
private static $initialized = false;
private static function initialize()
{
if (self::$initialized)
return;
self::$greeting .= ' There!';
self::$initialized = true;
}
public static function greet()
{
self::initialize();
echo self::$greeting;
}
}
Hello::greet(); // Hello There!
?>