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.
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.
My philosophy of life can be summed up in four words: It can’t be helped.
Borrowing has a bad name, but you would be surprised how it helps in a pinch.
The Ancient Egyptians considered it good luck to meet a swarm of Bees on the road. What they considered bad luck I couldn’t say.
It’s easy to see the faults in people I know; it’s hardest to see the good. Especially when the good isn’t there.
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.
The hippopotamus looks monogamous- he looks as if he would have to be.
The wren-box problem is becoming more acute each year, for wrens now demand better housing conditions and labor-saving devices.
The Love bird is one hundred percent faithful to his mate-who is locked into the same cage.
Orangutans teach us that looks are not everything-but warned near it.
The sloth lives his life upside down. He is perfectly comfortable that way. If the blood rushes to his head, nothing happens because there is nothing to work on.
A few Cobras in your home will soon clear it of Rats and Mice. Of course, you will still have the Cobras.
I do not travel. I am not much of an extrovert, and I’m not much interested in extroverted objects. I do not care for the ‘ideas’ of novelists. Novels are wonderful, of course, but I prefer newspapers.
I am billed as a humorist, but of course I am a tragedian at heart.
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.
Whenever a kangaroo puts his paws on your shoulder and gives you a big grin, that is the time to leave.
Egypt has been called the Gift of the Nile. Once every year the river overflows its banks, depositing a layer of rich alluvial soil on the parched ground. Then it recedes and soon the whole countryside, as far as the eye can reach, is covered with Egyptologists.
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.
During part of her childhood, Elizabeth was illegitimate. In 1534, Parliament ruled that it was treason to believe her illegitimate. In 1536, it was treason to believe her legitimate. Signals were changed again in 1543, and again in 1553. After that you could believe anything.