Will Cuppy Quotes (119 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Will Cuppy: 119 quotes 2 likes

Famous Will Cuppy Quotes

“Alexander III of Macedonia was born in 356 B. C., on the sixth day of the month of Lous. He is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time. (Footnote) He did this in order to impress Greek culture upon them. Alexander was not strictly a Greek and he was not cultured, but that was his story, and who am I to deny it?”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Alexander the Great

“[Footnote] He [Alexander] was often extremely brutal to his captives, whom he sold into slavery, tortured to death, or forced to learn Greek.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Alexander the Great

“Never call anyone a baboon unless you are sure of your facts.”

Will Cuppy

“A hermit is simply a person to whom civilization has failed to adjust itself.”

Will Cuppy

“We all make mistakes, but intelligence enables us to do it on purpose.”

Will Cuppy

“Other countries may boast of this and that, but nobody can touch the United States for poisonous snakes. We have about twenty species, most of them deadly, and Europe has only five or six, none of them much good. We have fifteen kinds of Rattlesnakes alone and nobody else has even one. [Footnote: There is a species in Central and South America, but it probably came from here. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Rattlesnake
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Will Cuppy Quotes about people

“Whenever he [Charlemagne] decided to help somebody's morals, people would bury their small change and hide in the swamps and forests.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Charlemagne

“All Modern Men are descended from a Wormlike creature but it shows more on some people.”

Will Cuppy

The Modern Man
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931)

“Then there's the law that any person found carrying a Swanhook, the same being neither a Swanherd in good standing nor accompanied by two certified Swanherds, or Swannerds (or Swanners, or Swanmasters), of known probity, should cough up thirteen shillings fourpence, three shillings fourpence going to the informer and the rest to the King. This looked like a fine bit of legislation until it developed that you can't collect from such people. They haven't got it. That's why they're out stealing Swans.”

Will Cuppy

Swan-Upping, Indeed!
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)

“The Bayeux Tapestry is accepted as an authority on many details of life and the fine points of history in the eleventh century. For instance, the horses in those days had green legs, blue bodies, yellow manes, and red heads, while the people were all double-jointed and quite different from what we generally think of as human beings.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part V: Merrie England, William the Conqueror

“Most of the original group [of elephants] succumbed to the climate, and he [Hannibal] was always begging Carthage for more, but the people at home were stingy. They would ask if he thought they were made of elephants and what he had done with the elephants they sent before. Sometimes, when he hadn't an elephant to his name, he would manage to wangle a few from somewhere, a feat which strikes me as his greatest claim to our attention.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

“Charlemagne's strong point was morals. He was so moral that some people thought he was only fooling. These people came to no good.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Charlemagne

Will Cuppy Quotes about time

“After a while Louis let her [du Barry] draw her own drafts on the comptroller-general. It saved time and bother in a field he much disliked. Jeanne never took more than she needed for urgent current expenses — that is, whatever was in the treasury.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Madame du Barry

“Her early years were very unhappy, and she decided she would have a good time if she ever got a chance. Later on, she overdid it a little.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Catherine the Great

“During the Cretaceous Period many of the inland seas dried up, leaving the Plesiosaurs stranded without any fish. Just about that time Mother Nature scrapped the whole Age of Reptiles and called for a new deal. And you can see what she got. [Footnote: Here we see the working of another Law of Nature: No water, no fish. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Plesiosaur
How to Become Extinct (1941)

“They [Xanthippus, Aristides the Just, and Themistocles] all won lasting renown by constantly accusing one another of peculation and fraud and calling names at election time.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Pericles

“He [Khufu] had discovered the fact that if you tell somebody to do something, nine times out of ten he will do it.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

“Attila was now sixtyish. His mind was weakening and he decided to marry again, as he had been terribly misunderstood the first three hundred times.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Attila the Hun

Will Cuppy: Trending quotes

“The Dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for.”

Will Cuppy

The Dodo
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Chance

“[Footnote:] The female of any species is generally regarded as a relatively anabolic organism, more passive than the male, who is relatively katabolic and active. The fact remains that one frequently runs across a rather katabolic female.”

Will Cuppy

The Viviparous Blenny
How to Become Extinct (1941)

“[Footnote] At the age of twelve Nero had shown a lively interest in the arts, particularly music, painting, sculpture, and poetry. Why was nothing done about this?”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Nero

Age , Art , Music , Painting

Will Cuppy Quotes

“The father guards the nest and fans it with his pectoral fins until the children are able to shift for themselves. Then he eats them. [Footnote: He does this because of his altruistic (parental) instinct. The higher one rises in the vertebrate scale the more altruistic one becomes. The higher vertebrates are just one mass of altruism. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Three-Spined Stickleback
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Children , Parent

“[Footnote:] The Chameleon's face reminded Aristotle of a Baboon. Aristotle wasn't much of a looker himself.”

Will Cuppy

The Chameleon
How to Become Extinct (1941)

“If the Pilgrims were looking for freedom of conscience, they came to just the right place. In America, everybody's conscience is unusually free.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Miles Standish

Freedom

“Catherine announced that he died of hemorrhoidal colic, and people who went to the funeral wondered why, in that case, the large bandage was tied around his neck. And that, gentle reader, is what comes from playing with dolls at the wrong time.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Catherine the Great

People , Time

“Whenever a thousand or so of his men would fall off an Alp, he [Hannibal] would tell the rest to cheer up, the elephants were all right. If someone had given him a shove at the right moment, much painful history might have been avoided.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

Men , Pain , History

“He [Thutmose III] went to Asia with his army and killed the natives to his heart's content, and stole so much of their goods that Egypt was rolling in wealth for quite a while. Thutmose III was thus one of the earliest exponents of internationalism, or going into other countries and slaughtering the inhabitants.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Hatshepsut

Heart , Country , Wealth

“Ah, well! We live and learn, or, anyway, we live.”

Will Cuppy

The Hermit's Emergency Shelf
How to Be a Hermit (1929)

Learning

“And he [Hannibal] probably believed, up to the very end, that everything might still come out right if he only had a few you-know-whats.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

“She [Lucrezia] also had bright yellow hair, which she washed once a week with a mixture of saffron, box shavings, wood ash, barley straw, madder, cumin seed, and one thing and another to bring out the hidden glints and restore its natural color. You left it on your head for twenty-four hours and washed it off with lye made from cabbage stalks, the only hazard of which was the second-degree burn. If your hair remained on the scalp, you were a blonde.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Lucrezia Borgia

Color , Nature , Box

“Even as a child back in Indiana, whenever I took a Butterbelly off the hook I used to ask myself, "Does this fish think?" I would even ask others, "Do you suppose this Butterbelly can think?" And all I would get in reply was a look. At the age of eighteen, I left the state.”

Will Cuppy

Do Fish Think, Really?
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Age , Thinking , Fish

“The Romans were stern and dignified, living hard, frugal lives and adhering to the traditional Latin virtues, gravitas, pietas, simplicitas, and adultery.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

“He believed you could reach the East by going west. That is true enough, if you don't overdo it. You can reach Long Island City by taking the ferry for Weehawken, but nobody does it on purpose.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Christopher Columbus

“They [the Pilgrim Fathers] believed in freedom of thought for themselves and for all other people who believed exactly as they did.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Miles Standish

People , Freedom

“Montezuma had a weak and vacillating nature. He never knew what to do next. [Footnote: He had the courage of his convictions, but he had no convictions. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Montezuma

Courage , Nature

“Pericles was the people's friend. [Footnote: The very poorest citizens had a chance to become President, but somehow they didn't. It may have been just a coincidence. ] He was so fond of the people that he paid them to go to the Assembly and vote, and they were so fond of him that they elected him year after year.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Pericles

People , Chance

“In some respects, Nero was ahead of his time. He boiled his drinking water to remove the impurities and cooled it with unsanitary ice to put them back in. He renamed the month of April after himself, calling it Neroneus, but the idea never caught on because April is not Neroneus and there is no use pretending that it is. During his reign of fourteen years, the outlying provinces are said to have prospered. They were farther away.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Nero

Idea , Drink , Water , Time

“If you annoy the Hog-nosed Snake enough, he will roll over on his back and play dead. If you turn him right-side up, he will roll over to prove that he is dead. [Footnote:] While he is playing dead, you can go straight up to him and step on his head or smash him with a big club.”

Will Cuppy

The Hog-Nosed Snake
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Dead

“[Footnote:] Pliny the Elder described a Whale called "Balaena or Whirlpool, which is so long and broad as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of ground." This brings up again the old question: Are the classics doomed? Our ancestors believed that four years of this sort of information would inevitably produce a President, or at least a Cabinet Member. It didn't seem to work out that way.”

Will Cuppy

The Whale
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931)

Way , Question

“[Footnote] Carthage was governed by its rich men and was therefore a plutocracy. Rome was also governed by its rich men and was therefore a republic.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

Men

“In 1740 Frederick became King and wrote a book to prove that lying, cheating, and highway robbery are wrong and that true happiness comes only from helping others. He then took Silesia away from Maria Theresa of Austria, who he had promised to protect, and was called Frederick the Great.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Frederick the Great

Books , Lying , Help , Cheating

“As you may be aware, Louis XIV built Versailles, a large, drafty place full of Louis Quatorze furniture and Madame de Montespan.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Louis XIV

“Philip [II of Spain] was a great believer in diplomacy, or the art of lying. He fooled some of the people some of the time.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Philip the Sap

People , Fools , Art , Lying

“[Footnote:] Pliny the Elder perished in 79 A. D. when he refused to flee from the great eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, insisting that everything would be all right. It wasn't.”

Will Cuppy

The Ostrich, from Birds Who Can't Even Fly
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)

“Hamilcar also told Hannibal about elephants and how you must always have plenty of these animals to scare the enemy. He attributed much of his own success to elephants and believed they would have won the First Punic War for him if things hadn't gone slightly haywire; for the war had turned into a naval affair. But even when the fighting was on land, the Romans did not scare nearly so well as expected. The Romans had learned about elephants while fighting Pyrrhus, whose elephants defeated him in 275 B. C., and even before that, in Alexander's time, King Porus had been undone by his own elephants. Thus, if history had taught any one thing up to that time, it was never to use elephants in war.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

War , History , Learning , Time

“Tragabigzanda was a rather large girl. Later on, Captain Smith named a portion of Massachusetts after her. [Footnote: This was afterwards changed to Cape Ann, because you really can't have a part of Massachusetts named Tragabigzanda. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Captain John Smith

Girl , Change , Parting

“[About experts' disbelief that Egyptians could build pyramids] It hardly seems possible that the ancient Egyptians were as smart as these experts. Still, they went right ahead and did it, and you can draw your own conclusions.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

Drawing

“[Footnote] Livy informs us that Hannibal split the huge Alpine rocks with vinegar to break a path for the elephants. Vinegar was a high explosive in 218 B. C., but not before or since.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Hannibal

“[Footnote:] The Dotterel weighs only four ounces. It has long been a scientific riddle how so much wrong-headedness can manage to exist in so small a space. Still, there's the Least Gnatcatcher.”

Will Cuppy

The Dotterel
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931)

“As for Lucrezia, there wasn't even a rumor in her own day that the strawberries at her Wednesday luncheons were dipped in sugar of lead and the other dishes tastefully sprayed with antimony, hellebore, corrosive sublimate, and deadly nightshade, all popular Renaissance flavors.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Lucrezia Borgia

“The War of the Spanish Succession lasted thirteen years and would have been wonderful if it hadn't been for the Duke of Marlborough. Things went from bad to worse until just about anybody could defeat the French. On one occasion, Louis's favorite regiment was knocked out by a man named Lumley.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Louis XIV

War , Success

“The more snuff Frederick took, the more memoirs he wrote. He loved literature, but not enough to let it alone and stop trying to improve it.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Frederick the Great

Love , Literature

“The colonists, it seems, had to "pay taxes to which their consent had never been asked." [Footnote: Today we pay taxes but our consent has been asked, and we have told the government to go ahead and tax us all they want to. We like it. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part V: Merrie England, George III

“[Footnote:] The head of a Pike, served at supper, is said to have caused the death from terror of Theodoric the Goth, who imagined the fish's features to be those of Symmachus, a man he had just killed. But for this story, we of today would have no idea what Symmachus looked like.”

Will Cuppy

The Pike
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Death , Imagination , Idea , Fish

“Egypt has been called the Gift of the Nile. Once every year the river overflows its banks, depositing a layer of rich alluvial soil on the parched ground. Then it recedes and soon the whole countryside, as far as the eye can reach, is covered with Egyptologists.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

“The Egyptians of the First Dynasty were already civilized in most respects. They had hieroglyphics, metal weapons for killing foreigners, numerous government officials, death, and taxes.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

Death

“[on the Borgias' illegitimate births] All children are natural, but some are more so than others and are therefore known as natural children.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Lucrezia Borgia

Children , Birth , Nature

“[Footnote:] An Ant on a hot stove-lid runs faster than an Ant on a cold one. Who wouldn't?”

Will Cuppy

The Ant, from Insects for Everybody
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)

“The Ancient Egyptians considered it good luck to meet a swarm of Bees on the road. What they considered bad luck I couldn't say.”

Will Cuppy

The Bee, from Insects for Everybody
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)

Bad luck , Bee

“Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Alexander the Great

Thinking , Personality

“Sartor Resartus is simply unreadable, and for me that always sort of spoils a book.”

Will Cuppy

How to Get from January to December (1951)

Books

“[Footnote:] A few Cobras in your home will soon clear it of Rats and Mice. Of course, you will still have the Cobras.”

Will Cuppy

The Cobra
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Home

“Thenceforth Jeanne's deeper infatuations always seemed to concern gentlemen of a certain age and standing in the financial world. Older men say such interesting things, and Jeanne was always a good listener. Anything you said was news to her.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Madame du Barry

Men , Age , World

“[Footnote:] Other foolish birds include the Semipalmated Plover, the Marbled Godwit, the Carolina Mosshead, the Tasmanian Googlenose and the Fool Hen or Franklin Grouse of the Rockies.”

Will Cuppy

The Dotterel
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931)

Fools , Bird

“[Footnote] Pericles immediately banished his strongest rival, Cimon, who had achieved popularity by bringing the bones of Theseus, slayer of the Minotaur, back to Athens from the island of Scyros. As Theseus was a myth, he could hardly have had any bones. Nevertheless, Cimon brought them back.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Pericles

“Other kings let their ministers make their mistakes for them, but Louis insisted on making the important mistakes personally.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part IV: A Few Greats, Louis XIV

Personality

“[Footnote] Great men seem to have only one purpose in life — getting into history. That may be all they are good for.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Captain John Smith

Life , Men , History

“As the average Athenian citizen was not awfully bright, it was necessary to have a great many of them on each jury. … They did not have to prove that they were completely ignorant before they were accepted as jurymen. That was taken for granted.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Pericles

“The Modern Man or Nervous Wreck is the highest of all mammals because anyone can see that he is. There are about 2,000,000,000 Modern Men, or too many. The Modern Man's highly developed brain has made him what he is and you know what he is. [Footnote: It is because of his brain that he has risen above the animals. Guess which animals he has risen above. ]”

Will Cuppy

The Modern Man
How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931)

Men , Animals

“Egyptologists say they have no idea what Khufu was doing when he was not building pyramids, since he left no inscriptions describing his daily activities, and they would give a good deal to know. Then they say he had six wives and a harem full of concubines. They do not seem to make the connection, but you get it and I get it. We do not need any hieroglyphics to inform us that Khufu dropped around occasionally to see how things were getting along and to tell the ladies how many cubic yards of limestone he had laid that afternoon.”

Will Cuppy

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part I: It Seems There Were Two Egyptians, Cheops, or Khufu

Idea

“Armadillos make affectionate pets, if you need affection that much.”

Will Cuppy

How to Get from January to December (1951)

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