Will Cuppy: Quotes about time

“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

People , Time

“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

Chance , 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

Time , Drawing

“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

Time

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

Time

“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)

Age , Law , Nature , Fish

“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

Fraud , Time

“The moral of the story of the Pilgrims is that if you work hard all your life and behave yourself every minute and take no time out for fun you will break practically even, if you can borrow enough money to pay your taxes.”

Will Cuppy

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

Life , Money , Time

“The Franks had all been German at first, but some of them had taken to eating frogs and snails and were gradually turning into Frenchmen, a fact not generally known at the time because there were no French as yet.”

Will Cuppy

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

Time

“We do not really know why the Woolly Mammoth became extinct. Early Man killed some of them, of course. But most of the time Early Man stayed right in his cave, holding hands with Early Woman. I wouldn't know what the Woolly Mammoth did about that sort of thing. Not nearly enough, I suspect.”

Will Cuppy

The Woolly Mammoth
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Time

“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.”

Will Cuppy

Footnote: Here we see the working of another Law of Nature: No water, no fish.
The Plesiosaur
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Time , Nature , Age , Fish