Will Cuppy Quotes

136 Sourced 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
Etiquette…means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential.

Will Cuppy
He [Julius Caesar] stayed in Egypt from early October until late in June settling affairs of state. It was a boy and they called him Caesarion, or Little Caesar, so Cleopatra now regarded herself as practically engaged. Caesar might have married her, but he had a wife at home. There's always something.

Will Cuppy
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
Just when you're beginning to think pretty well of people, you run across somebody who puts sugar on sliced tomatoes.

Will Cuppy
Some people lose all respect for the lion unless he devours them instantly. There is no pleasing some people.

Will Cuppy
I only know that all is lost, and that nothing can help me unless I inherit money, strike oil or go to work.

Will Cuppy
Taking elephants across the Alps is not as much fun as it sounds. The Alps are difficult enough when alone, and elephants are peculiarly fitted for not crossing them.

Will Cuppy
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.
Footnote

Will Cuppy
The Mexicans gave the Spaniards malaria, and the Spaniards gave the Mexicans smallpox, whooping cough, diphtheria, and syphilis. The Spaniards believed it was better to give than to receive.
Footnote

Will Cuppy
I am billed as a humorist, but of course I am a tragedian at heart.

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

Will Cuppy
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
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 Age of Reptiles ended because it had gone on long enough and it was all a mistake in the first place. A better day was dawning at the close of the Mesozoic Era. There were some little warm-blooded animals around which had been stealing and eating the eggs of the Dinosaurs, and they were gradually learning to steal other things, too. Civilization was just around the corner.

Will Cuppy
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
He [Pericles] reduced the power of the Council of the Areopagus, a group of feeble old men who held their jobs for life and whose duty it was to declare everything null and void… [Footnote:] He also revoked their right to censor the private lives of the citizens. This was nasty of Pericles, for about the only pleasure the old fellows had was catching some citizen doing what he shouldn't. After that, they had to use their imaginations.

Will Cuppy
Most people erroneously call this snake the Puff Adder, Beach Adder, or Blowing Viper. So, naturally, they kill it.

Will Cuppy
We have no Common Vipers in the United States, but we have worse.

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

Will Cuppy
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.
Footnote

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

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

Will Cuppy
Three million alligators were killed in Florida between 1880 and 1900. Goody!

Will Cuppy