Will Cuppy Quotes

136 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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
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
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
The trouble with the dictionary is that you have to know how a word is spelled before you can look it up to see how it is spelled.

Will Cuppy
Salmon have strange ideas. They are afraid of parsley and slices of lemon.

Will Cuppy
Amoebas not only divide, they also blend. When it's all over there is one amoeba where there were two. Amoebas blend apparently because they enjoy blending for its own sake. The amoeba often frequents laboratories. You'll find quite a number of amoebas at Yale, Princeton, and Harvard.

Will Cuppy
Fish are very easy to understand because only about thirteen thousand kinds or species have been discovered up to now.

Will Cuppy
The wren-box problem is becoming more acute each year, for wrens now demand better housing conditions and labor-saving devices.

Will Cuppy
I have nothing against mice, in moderation.... My own mice just eat whatever I have in the place, including soap. Not an ideal diet, but they'll have to make it do or move elsewhere.

Will Cuppy
Goldfish come of a very old family, but it seems to do them no good. They have little place to go.... They have been cultivated so long that they are now useless. Goldfish have most uninteresting habits.

Will Cuppy
Octopuses do not develop their minds. They get by and that's all they care.

Will Cuppy
The Garter Snake or Striped Snake is our most abundant North American serpent. Although they are always getting killed or driven from their natural homes, there are just as many Garter Snakes as ever, and I can tell you the reason. Garter Snakes are crazy about sex and they don't care who knows it.

Will Cuppy
As a rule fish in their native element do not remain stationary for any length of time, especially when something is chasing them.

Will Cuppy
I am often asked why Mosquitoes hum loudest when close to one's ear. I don't know.

Will Cuppy
Vipers show you what Mother Nature can think up when she puts her mind to it.

Will Cuppy
The hippopotamus looks monogamous- he looks as if he would have to be.

Will Cuppy
It is the chief function of the ichthyologists, or fish people, to keep pointing out, day after day, the perfect fitness of fish for existence in a liquid medium. And they're right, at that. But I sometimes think that if fish were not well adapted for an aquatic life — if they were square, say — then it would be time to talk.

Will Cuppy
His kick is less severe than that of the Ostrich, which easily breaks a man's leg. The Emu's kick seldom breaks more than the fibula, the smaller bone of the leg, leaving the tibia in first-class condition.

Will Cuppy
Galvani was mistaken about the amount of electricity in frogs, but he had some good ideas, too, for the galvanometer is named in his honor, and you don't have galvanometers named after you merely for making a mistake about a frog.

Will Cuppy
You are a bug only if you belong to the order Hemiptera, formerly the suborder Heteroptera. Is that clear now?

Will Cuppy
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
Aristotle maintains that the neck of the Lion is composed of a single bone. Aristotle knew nothing at all about Lions, a circumstance which did not prevent him from writing a good deal on the subject.

Will Cuppy
The male is colored much more gorgeously than the female so that he can be shot and made into feather embroidery.

Will Cuppy
Captain Smith reached Virginia on April 26, 1607, with a number of English gentlemen and some people who were willing to work. Then they all held a meeting to discuss ways and means of civilizing everybody. They made a great many speeches and accused each other of various crimes and misdemeanors and arrested some of themselves as an object lesson, and American history was started at last.

Will Cuppy
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