Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Will Cuppy
Will Cuppy Quotes
136 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
The male is colored much more gorgeously than the female so that he can be shot and made into feather embroidery.
Will Cuppy
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
All Modern Men are descended from a Wormlike creature but it shows more on some people.
Will Cuppy
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Young normal tigers do not eat people. If eaten by a tiger you may rest assured he was abnormal.
Will Cuppy
Source
Report...
Entomologists are people who want Ants around. If there are no Ants around, they will go where Ants are.
Will Cuppy
Source
Report...
The Carp is dull and cluggish and greenish or brownish. You wouldn't want him around.
Will Cuppy
Source
Report...
In the Pleistocene Era, there were more than twenty kinds of elephants. Now there are only two. That's plenty.
Will Cuppy
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
You are a bug only if you belong to the order Hemiptera, formerly the suborder Heteroptera. Is that clear now?
Will Cuppy
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
The hippopotamus looks monogamous- he looks as if he would have to be.
Will Cuppy
1
2
3
4
5
6
Quote of the day
Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.
Martin Luther
Will Cuppy
Born:
August 23, 1884
Died:
September 19, 1949
(aged 65)
Bio:
William Jacob "Will" Cuppy was an American humorist and literary critic, known for his satirical books about nature and historical figures.
Known for:
How to Attract the Wombat (1949)
How to tell your friends from the apes (1931)
How to Become Extinct (1941)
Most used words:
people
elephants
time
men
aristotle
believed
age
life
years
thought
early
war
history
montezuma
killed
Will Cuppy on Wikipedia
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Will Cuppy Quotes
Will Cuppy Short Quotes
American Journalist Quotes
Journalist Quotes
19th-century Journalist Quotes
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes