Will Cuppy Quotes

136 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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
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 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
I hear so many things about who I am supposed to be I hardly know what to believe. I am willing to tell all, but what Is it? Doubtless all these myths and legends will be straightened out eventually, but It may take years.

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

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

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

Will Cuppy
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
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
It's easy to see the faults in people, I know; and it's harder to see the good. Especially when the good isn't there.
Footnote

Will Cuppy
Young normal tigers do not eat people. If eaten by a tiger you may rest assured he was abnormal.

Will Cuppy
Entomologists are people who want Ants around. If there are no Ants around, they will go where Ants are.

Will Cuppy
The Carp is dull and cluggish and greenish or brownish. You wouldn't want him around.

Will Cuppy
In the Pleistocene Era, there were more than twenty kinds of elephants. Now there are only two. That's plenty.

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