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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, philosopher, and a paleontologist present at the discovery of Peking Man.

Quotes

 * Christ has a cosmic body that extends throughout the universe.
 * Cosmic Life (1916)

 * The future is more beautiful than all the pasts.
 * Letter (5 September 1919), in The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier-Priest 1914–1919

 * Science will, in all probability, be increasingly impregnated by mysticism.
 * My Universe (1924)

 * I am far from denying the destructive and disintegrating forces of passion. I will go so far as to agree that apart from the reproductive function, men have hitherto used love, on the whole, as an instrument of self-corruption and intoxication. But what do these excesses prove? Because fire consumes and electricity can kill are we to stop using them? The feminine is the most formidable of the forces of matter. True enough. "Very well, then," say the moralists, "we must avoid it." "Not at all," I reply, "we take hold of it." In every domain of the real (physical, affective, intellectual) "danger" is a sign of power. Only a mountain can create a terrifying drop. The customary education of the Christian conscience tends to make us confuse tutiorism with prudence, safety with truth. Avoiding the risk of transgression has become more important to us than carrying a difficult position for God. And it is this that is killing us. "The more dangerous a thing, the more is its conquest ordained by life": it is from that conviction that the modern world has emerged; and from that our religion, too, must be reborn.
 * "The Evolution of Chastity" (1934), as translated by René Hague in Toward the Future (1975)

 * The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe. Beyond the vibrations with which we are familiar, the rainbow-like range of its colours is still in full growth. But, for all the fascination that the lower shades have for us, it is only towards the "ultra" that the creation of light advances. It is in these invisible and, we might almost say, immaterial zones that we can look for true initiation into unity. The depths we attribute to matter are no more than the reflection of the peaks of spirit.
 * "The Evolution of Chastity" (1934), as translated by René Hague in Toward the Future (1975)

 * What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but expressing them. And so we cannot avoid this conclusion: it is biologically evident that to gain control of passion and so make it serve spirit must be a condition of progress. Sooner or later, then, the world will brush aside our incredulity and take this step : because whatever is the more true comes out into the open, and whatever is better is ultimately realized. The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
 * "The Evolution of Chastity" (February 1934), as translated in Toward the Future (1975) edited by by René Hague, who also suggests "space" as an alternate translation of "the ether."
 * Variants:
 * "One day after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity" — after all the scientific and technological achievements — "we shall harness for God the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."
 * As quoted by R. Sargent Shriver, Jr. in his speech accepting the nomination as the Democratic candidate for vice president, in Washington, D. C. (8 August 1972); this has sometimes been published as if Shriver's interjection "after all the scientific and technological achievements" were part of the original statement, as in The New York Times (9 August 1972), p. 18
 * What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but identifying them.
 * As translated in The The Ignatian Tradition (2009) edited by Kevin F. Burke, Eileen Burke-Sullivan and Phyllis Zagano, p. 86
 * Love is the only force which can make things one without destroying them. ... Some day, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
 * As quoted in Seed Sown : Theme and Reflections on the Sunday Lectionary Reading (1996) by Jay Cormier, p. 33
 * The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.
 * As quoted in Fire of Love : Encountering the Holy Spirit (2006) by Donald Goergen, p. 92
 * The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
 * As quoted in Read for the Cure (2007) by Eileen Fanning, p. v

 * There is neither spirit nor matter in the world; the stuff of the universe is spirit-matter. No other substance but this could produce the human molecule. I know very well that this idea of spirit-matter is regarded as a hybrid monster, a verbal exorcism of a duality which remains unresolved in its terms. But I remain convinced that the objections made to it arise from the mere fact that few people can make up their minds to abandon an old point of view and take the risk of a new idea. ... Biologists or philosophers cannot conceive a biosphere or noosphere because they are unwilling to abandon a certain narrow conception of individuality. Nevertheless, the step must be taken. For in fact, pure spirituality is as unconceivable as pure materiality. Just as, in a sense, there is no geometrical point, but as many structurally different points as there are methods of deriving them from different figures, so every spirit derives its reality and nature from a particular type of universal synthesis.
 * A Sketch of a Personalistic Universe (1936)

 * The reality of spirit-matter is inevitably translated into and confirmed by a structure of the spirit.
 * A Sketch of a Personalistic Universe (1936)

 * Through the incarnation God descended into nature in order to super-animate and take it back to him.
 * Mysticism of Science (1939)

 * Personally, I stick to my idea that we are watching the birth, more than the death, of a World. The scandal for you, is that England and France should have come to this tragedy because they have sincerely tried the road of peace. But did they not precisely make a mistake on the true meaning of "peace"? Peace cannot mean anything but a HIGHER PROCESS OF CONQUEST. ... The world is bound to belong to its most active elements. ... Just now, the Germans deserve to win because, however bad or mixed is their spirit, they have more spirit than the rest of the world. It is easy to criticize and despise the fifth column. But no spiritual aims or energy will ever succeed, or even deserve to succeed, unless it is able to spread and keep spreading a fifth column.
 * Letter from Peking (Summer 1940), quoted in The Last European War : September 1939/December 1941 (1976) by John Lukacs, p. 515

 * We only have to look around us to see how complexity and psychic temperature are still rising: and rising no longer on the scale of the individual but now on that of the planet. This indication is so familiar to us that we cannot but recognize the objective, experiential, reality of a transformation of the planet as a whole.
 * The Heart of Matter (1950)

 * Above all I feel that you must resign yourself to taking me as I am, that is, with the congenital quality (or weakness) which ever since my childhood has caused my spiritual life to be completely dominated by a sort of profound 'feeling' for the organic realness of the World. At first it was an ill-defined feeling in my mind and heart, but as the years have gone by it has gradually become a precise, compelling sense of the Universe's general convergence upon itself; a convergence which coincides with, and culminates at its zenith in, him in quo omina constant, and whom the Society has taught me to love.
 * Letter from Cape Town to Father General, Jean-Baptiste Janssens (12 October 1951)

 * I can truly say — and this in virtue of the whole structure of my thought — that I now feel more indissolubly bound to the hierarchical Church and to the Christ of the Gospel than ever before in my life. Never has Christ seemed to me more real, more personal or more immense.
 * Letter from Cape Town to Father General, Jean-Baptiste Janssens (12 October 1951)

 * Since once again, O Lord, in the steppes of Asia, I have no bread, no wine, no altar, I will raise myself above those symbols to the pure majesty of reality, and I will offer to you, I, your priest, upon the altar of the entire earth, the labor and the suffering of the world. Receive, O Lord, in its totality the Host which creation, drawn by your magnetism, presents to you at the dawn of a new day. This bread, our effort, is in itself, I know, nothing but an immense disintegration. This wine, our anguish, as yet, alas! is only an evaporating beverage. But in the depths of this inchoate Mass you have placed — I am certain, for I feel it — an irresistible and holy desire that moves us all, the impious as well as the faithful to cry out: "O Lord, make us one!"
 * Prayer for Easter Sunday in the Ordos Desert of Inner Mongolia published in article “The Priest Who Haunts the Catholic World” Saturday Evening Post (12 October 1963)

 * Mankind is now caught up, as though in a train of gears, at the heart of a continually accelerating vortex of self-totalisation
 * Man's Place in Nature (1966), p. 100

 * This soul can only be a conspiracy of individuals
 * Quoted by Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy, (1980)

The Phenomenon of Man (1955)

 * Le Phénomène Humain (1955)

 * If THIS book is to be properly understood, it must be read not as a work on metaphysics, still less as a... theological essay, but purely and simply as a scientific treatise.

 * This book deals with man solely as a phenomenon; but... with the whole pheneomenon...

Spiritual perfection (or conscious 'centreity') and material synthesis (or complexity) are but two aspects or connected parts of one and the same phenomenon.
 * The degree of concentration of a consciousness varies in inverse ratio to the simplicity of the material compound...

 * In sum, all the rest of this essay will be nothing but the story of the struggle in the universe between the unified multiple and the unorganized multitude: the full application of great Law of complexity and consciousness: a law that... implies a psychically convergent structure and curvature of the world.

 * There is no concept more familiar... than... spiritual energy, yet there is none... more opaque scientifically.

 * Nowhere... is the need more urgent of building a bridge between the... the physical and the moral...

 * To connect the two energies, of the body and the soul, in a coherent manner: science has provisionally decided to ignore the question... caught up as we are here in the logic of a system where the within of things has just as much or... more value than their without... we must advance.

 * Sometimes we need bread, sometimes wine, sometimes a tonic or a hormone injection, sometimes the stimulation of a colour, sometimes the magic of a sound which goes in at our ears as a vibration and reaches our brains in the form of inspiration. ...[T]here is something through which material and spiritual energy hold together and are complementary. ...[T]here must be a single energy operating in the world. ...[T]he 'soul' must be ...a focal point of transformation ...[F]orces of bodies converge, to become interiorised and sublimated in beauty and truth. ...Yet, ...direct transformation of one of these two energies into the other... has to be abandoned. As... we try to couple them... their mutual independence becomes as clear as their interrelation.

 * To the cosmic corpuscles we should find it natural to attribute an individual radius of action as limited as their dimensions. We find, on the contrary, that each of them can only be defined by virtue of its influence on all around it. Whatever space we suppose it to be in, each cosmic element radiates in it and entirely fills it. However narrowly the heart of an atom may be circumscribed, its realm is co-extensive, at least potentially, with that of every other atom. This strange property we will come across again, even in the human molecule.

 * [W]e realise... the fact and... reason for the diversity of animal behaviour. From the moment we regard evolution as... psychical transformation, we see... a multitude of forms of instincts each corresponding to a... solution of the problem of life. The 'psychical' make-up of an insect is not and cannot be that of a vertebrate ; nor can... [that] of a squirrel be that of a cat or... elephant: this in virtue of the position[s]... on the tree of life. ...[W]e begin to see ...a gradation formed. If instinct is a variable dimension, the instincts will... create, beneath their complexity, a growing system. They will form as a whole a... fan-like structure in which the higher terms on each nervure are recognised... by a greater range of choice and depending on a better defined centre of coordination and consciousness. ...The 'psychical' make-up of a dog... is... superior to that of a mole or a fish. ...[T]he upholders of the spiritual explanation have no need to be disconcerted when they see... in the higher animals (particularly in the great apes) ways and reactions which strangely recall... 'a reasoning soul'. If the story of life is no more than a movement of consciousness veiled by morphology, it is inevitable that... in the proximity of man, the 'psychical' make-ups seem to reach the borders of intelligence.

 * When water is heated to boiling... and one goes on heating it, the first thing that follows—without change of temperature—is a tumultuous expansion of freed and vaporised molecules. Or, taking a series of sections from the base towards the summit of a cone, their area decreases constantly; then suddenly, with another infinitesimal displacement, the surface vanishes leaving us with a point. Thus... we are able to imagine the mechanism involved in the critical threshold of reflection. ...[N]ervous systems followed pari passu the process of increased complication and concentration. Finally, with the primates, an instrument was fashioned so remarkably supple and rich that the step immediately following could not take place without the whole animal psychism being... recast and consolidated on itself. ...When the anthropoid... had been brought 'mentally' to boiling point.... Or... had almost reached the summit of the cone, a final effort took place along the axis. ...What was previously only a centred surface became a centre. By a tiny 'tangential' increase, the 'radial' was turned back on itself and... took an infinite leap forward. Outwardly, almost nothing in the organs had changed. But in depth, a great revolution... consciousness was now leaping and boiling in a space of super-sensory relationships and representations; and simultaneously... was capable of perceiving itself... for the first time.

 * Those who adopt the spiritual explanation are right when they defend... a... transcendence of man over the rest of nature. But neither are the materialists wrong when they maintain that man is just one further term in a series of animal forms. Here, as in so many cases, the two antithetical kinds of evidences are resolved in a movement... to the highly natural... 'change of state'. From the cell to the thinking animal, as from the atom to the cell, a single process (a psychical kindling or concentration) goes on without interruption... in the same direction. But by virtue of this permanence in the operation, it is inevitable... that certain leaps... transform the subject of the operation.

 * Discontinuity in continuity: that is how... the birth of thought, like that of life, presents... and defines itself.

 * A glow ripples outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever widening circles till finally the whole planet is covered with incandescence. Only one interpretation, only one name can be found worthy of this grand phenomenon. Much more coherent and just as extensive as any preceding layer, it is really a new layer, the 'thinking layer', which, since its germination at the end of the period, has spread over and above the world of plants and animals. In other words, outside and above the biosphere there is the .

 * Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.

 * If there were no internal propensity to unite, even at a prodigiously rudimentary level—indeed in the molecule itself—it would be physically impossible for love to appear higher up, with us, in hominized form. . . . Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being.

 * Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

 * A universal love is not only psychologically possible; it is the only complete and final way in which we are able to love.

 * The radical defect in all forms of belief in progress, as they are expressed in positivist credos, is that they do not definitely eliminate death. What is the use of detecting a focus of any sort in the van of evolution if that focus can and must one day disintegrate? To satisfy the ultimate requirements of our action, Omega must be independent of the collapse of the forces with which evolution is woven.

 * Actuality, irreversibility. ...Omega ...is discovered ...at the end ...[I]n it the movement culminates. Yet... under this evolutive facet Omega still only reveals half of itself. While being the last term of its series, it is also outside all series. ...If by its very nature it did not escape from time and space which it gathers together, it would not be Omega.

Thus something in the cosmos escapes from entropy, and does so more and more.
 * Autonomy, actuality, irreversibility, and... transcendence are the four attributes of Omega. In this way... we... enclose the energy-complex of our universe. ...Contrary to the appearances still admitted by physics, the Great Stability is not at the bottom in the infra-elementary sphere, but at the top in the ultra-synthetic sphere. ...[E]ntirely by its tangential envelope ...the world goes on dissipating itself in a chance way into matter. By its radial nucleus it finds its shape and... consistency in gravitating against the tide of probability towards a divine focus of mind which draws it onward.

With this we are introduced to a fantastic and inevitable event which now begins to take shape in our perspective, the event which comes nearer with every day that passes: the end of all life on our globe, the death of the planet, the ultimate phase of the phenomenon of man.
 * However convergent it be, evolution cannot attain to fulfilment on earth except through a point of dissociation.

 * Noogenesis rises upwards in us and through us unceasingly. ...[T]he closer association of the grains of thought; the synthesis of individuals and of nations or races; the need of an autonomous and supreme personal focus to bind elementary personalities... in an atmosphere of active sympathy. ...[A]ll this results from the combined action of two curvatures—the roundness of the earth and the cosmic convergence of mind—in conformity with the law of complexity and consciousness.

 * Now when sufficient elements have sufficiently agglomerated, this essentially convergent movement will attain such intensity and such quality that mankind, taken as a whole, will be obliged—as happened to the individual forces of instinct—to reflect upon itself at a single point; that is to say, in this case, to abandon its organo-planetary foothold so as to shift its centre on to the transcendent centre of its increasing concentration. This will be the end and the fulfillment of the spirit of the earth. The end of the world: the wholesale internal introversion upon itself of the, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limit of its complexity and its centrality. The end of the world: the overthrow of equilibrium, detaching the mind, fulfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega.

 * Are we to foresee man seeking to fullfil himself collectively upon himself, or personally on a greater than himself? Refusal or acceptance of Omega? ... Universal love would only vivify and detach finally a fraction of the noosphere so as to consummate it—the part which decided to "cross the threshold", to get outside itself into the other.

Not an indefinite progress, which is an hypothesis contradicted by the convergent nature of noogenesis, but an ecstasy transcending the dimensions and the framework of the visible universe.
 * The death of the materially exhausted planet; the split of the noosphere, divided on the form to be given to its unity; and simultaneously (endowing the event with all its significance and with all its value) the liberation of that percentage of the universe which, across time, space and evil, will have succeeded in laboriously synthesising itself to the very end.

The Divine Milieu (1960)

 * As a result of changes which, over the last century, have modified our empirically based pictures of the world and hence the moral value of many of its elements, the "human religious ideal" inclines to stress certain tendencies and to express itself in terms which seem, at first sight, no longer to coincide with the "christian religious ideal".
 * Preface, p. 43

 * At the heart of our universe, each soul exists for God, in our Lord.
 * The Divinisation of Our Activities, p. 56

 * God is inexhaustibly attainable in the totality of our action.
 * The Divinisation of Our Activities, p. 63

 * By virtue of creation, and still more the incarnation, nothing here is profane for those who know how to see.
 * The Divinisation of Our Activities, p. 66

 * Those who spread their sails in the right way to the winds of the earth will always find themselves born by a current towards the open seas.
 * The Divinisation of Our Activities, p. 72

 * We are like soldiers who fall during the assault which leads to peace.
 * The Divinisation of Our Activities, p. 85

 * In the spiritual life, as in all organic processes, everyone has their optimum and it is just as harmful to go beyond it as not to attain it.
 * On Christian Asceticism, p. 100

 * All the communions of a life-time are one communion. All the communions of all men now living are one communion. All the communions of all men, present, past and future, are one communion.
 * The Divine Milieu, p. 124

 * A breeze passes in the night. When did it spring up? Whence does it come? Whither is it going? No man knows.
 * The Divine Milieu, p. 128

 *  The world can no more have two summits than a circumference can have two centres.
 * Epilogue, In Expectation of the Parousia, p. 154

Christianity and Evolution (1969)

 * Christianity and Evolution (1971 edition, online)

 * In the "Alexandrian" explanation described above, the multiple from which evolution emerges is both secondary and sinful from its origin: it represents in fact (an idea that smacks of Manicheanism and the Hindu metaphysical systems) broken and pulverized unity. Starting from a very much more modern and completely different point of view, let us assert, as our original postulate, that, the multiple (that is, non-being, if taken in the pure state) being the only rational form of a creatable (creabile) nothingness, the creative act is comprehensible only as a gradual process of arrangement and unification, which amounts to accepting that to create is to unite. And, indeed, there is nothing to prevent our holding that union creates. To the objection that union presupposes already existing elements, I shall answer that physics has just shown us (in the case of mass) that experientially (and for all the protests of "common sense") the moving object exists only as the product of its motion.
 * pp. 193–195

Activation of Energy (1976)

 * Activation of Energy Harcourt, 1978

 * In its most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internal, affectively apprehended, aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre. This is how it has been understood by the great philosophers from Plato, the poet, to Nicolas of Cusa and other representatives of frigid scholasticism. Once this definition has been accepted, it gives rise to a series of important consequences. Love is power of producing inter-centric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all the natural centres, living and pre-living, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that it is possible to conceive between those centres. Love, in fact, is the expression and the agent of universal synthesis.
 * pp. 70–71

Disputed

 * We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
 * This is attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Joy of Kindness (1993), by Robert J. Furey, p. 138; but it is attributed to G. I. Gurdjieff in Beyond Prophecies and Predictions: Everyone's Guide To The Coming Changes (1993) by Moira Timms, p. 62; neither cite a source. It was widely popularized by Wayne Dyer, who often quotes it in his presentations, crediting it to Chardin, as does Stephen Covey in Living the 7 Habits : Stories of Courage and Inspiration (2000), p. 47. Such statements could be considered paraphrases of Hegel's dictum that matter is spirit fallen into a state of self-otherness.
 * Variant: We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.

 * Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.
 * Though often attributed to Chardin, it is found in Letters to His Fiancée (1937), by Léon Bloy, p. 57. "For the people who know the Bible and Tradition and the complete history of humanity, Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God and that is why the Northern peoples, eaten up with sadness, come and visit the Latin countries..."

Quotes about Chardin

 * Sorted alphabetically by author or source

In him, a powerful poetic intuition of nature's profound value, a sharp perception of creation's dynanism, and a broad vision of the world's future join together with an incontestable religious fervor. Similarly, his unremitting desire to dialogue with the science of his time and his bold optimism about the evolution of the world have given his intuitions — through the rich variety of his words and the magic of his images — considerable influence. Completely turned to the future, this synthesis, often lyrical and animated with passion for the universal, will help to restore hope to those assailed by doubts. ... What our contemporaries will undoubtedly remember, beyond the difficulties of conception and deficiencies of expression in this audacious attempt to reach a synthesis, is the testimomy of the coherent life of a man possessed by Christ in the depths of his soul. He was concerned with honoring both faith and reason, and anticipated the response to John Paul II's appeal: "Be not afraid, open, open wide to Christ the doors of the immense domains of culture, civilization, and progress."
 * The astonishing resonance of his research, as well as the brilliance of his personality and richness of his thinking, have profoundly marked our epoch.
 * Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, in "Cardinal Agostino Casaroli praises the work of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin" in L'Osservatore Romano (10 June 1981)

 * In his own poetic style, the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin liked to meditate on the Eucharist as the firstfruits of the new creation. In an essay called The Monstrance he describes how, kneeling in prayer, he had a sensation that the Host was beginning to grow until at last, through its mysterious expansion, "the whole world had become incandescent, had itself become like a single giant Host." Although it would probably be incorrect to imagine that the universe will eventually be transubstantiated, Teilhard correctly identified the connection between the Eucharist and the final glorification of the cosmos.
 * Cardinal Avery Dulles, in "A Eucharistic Church : The Vision of John Paul II" (10 November 2004)

 * In every age, said scientist-philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, man has proclaimed himself at a turning point in history. " And to a certain extent, as he is advancing on a rising spiral, he has not been wrong. But there are moments when this impression of transformation becomes accentuated and is thus particularly justified." Teilhard prophesied the phenomenon central to this book: a conspiracy of men and women whose new perspective would trigger a critical contagion of change. Throughout history virtually all efforts to remake society began by altering its outward form and organization.
 * Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy, Chapter 1 (1980)

 * There are really only two ways, it seems to me, in which we can think about our existence here on Earth. We either agree with Macbeth that life is nothing more than a "tale told by an idiot," a purposeless emergence of life-forms including the clever, greedy, selfish, and unfortunate species that we call homo sapiens — the "evolutionary goof." Or we believe that, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin put it, "There is something afoot in the universe, something that looks like gestation and birth." In other words, a plan, a purpose to it all.
 * Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope : A Spiritual Journey (1999), p. xi

 * It can be said that he applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his great spiritual faith to the concept of building up a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, that would relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science. The Phenomenon of Man is Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. Its subject could be described as the surging evolution of the world from the primal stuff of the universe, through life, to consciousness and man.'''
 * Julian Huxley, in his introduction to The Phenomenon of Man (1955)

 * Yet the greater part of it, I shall show, is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself.
 * Peter Medawar, "Review of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man". In: Mind Vol.70 (1961)

 * What Teilhard seems to be trying to say is that evolution is often (he says always) accompanied by an increase of orderliness or internal coherence or degree of integration. In what sense is the fertilized egg that develops into an adult human being 'higher' than, say, a bacterial cell? In the sense that it contains richer and more complicated genetical instructions for the execution of those processes that together constitute development. Thus Teilhard's radial, spiritual or psychic energy may be equated to 'information'... in the sense... made... precise by modern communication engineers. To equate it to consciousness, or to regard degree of consciousness as a measure of information content, is one of the silly little metaphysical conceits... Teilhard's belief, enthusiastically shared by Sir Julian Huxley, that evolution flouts or foils the second law of thermodynamics is based on a confusion of thought; and the idea that evolution has a main track or privileged axis is unsupported by scientific evidence.
 * Peter Medawar, "Review of Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man", Mind Vol. 70 (1961)

 * You can't fit the Almighty into your intellectual categories. I might suggest that you look into some of the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (The Phenomenom of Man et al.). He was a paleontologist-helped to discover Peking man-and also a man of God. I don't suggest you go to him for answers but for different questions, for that stretching of the imagination that you need to make you a sceptic in the face of much that you are learning, much of which is new and shocking but which when boiled down becomes less so and takes its place in the general scheme of things.
 * Flannery O'Connor Letters to Alfred Corn (1962)

This leads to a further passage in Teilhard de Chardin that is worth quoting in order to give at least some indication here, by means of a few fragmentary excerpts, of his general outlook. "The Universal Energy must be a Thinking Energy if it is not to be less highly evolved than the ends animated by its action. And consequently ... the attributes of cosmic value with which it is surrounded in our modern eyes do not affect in the slightest the necessity obliging us to recognize in it a transcendent form of Personality."
 * It must be regarded as an important service of Teilhard de Chardin's that he rethought these ideas from the angle of the modern view of the world and, in spite of a not entirely unobjectionable tendency toward the biological approach, nevertheless on the whole grasped them correctly and in any case made them accessible once again. Let us listen to his own words: The human monad “can only be absolutely itself by ceasing to be alone”. In the background is the idea that in the cosmos, alongside the two orders or classes of the infinitely small and the infinitely big, there is a third order, which determines the real drift of evolution, namely, the order of the infinitely complex. It is the real goal of the ascending process of growth or becoming; it reaches a first peak in the genesis of living things and then continues to advance to those highly complex creations that give the cosmos a new center: “Imperceptible and accidental as the position they hold may be in the history of the heavenly bodies, in the last analysis the planets are nothing less than the vital points of the universe. It is through them that the axis now runs, on them is henceforth concentrated the main effort of an evolution aiming principally at the production of large molecules.” The examination of the world by the dynamic criterion of complexity thus signifies “a complete inversion of values. A reversal of the perspective...
 * Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, (later Pope Benedict XVI), in Introduction To Christianity 2nd Edition (2000)

 * And so we can now say that the goal of worship and the goal of creation as a whole are one and the same — divinization, a world of freedom and love. But this means that the historical makes its appearance in the cosmic. The cosmos is not a kind of closed building, a stationary container in which history may by chance take place. It is itself movement, from its one beginning to its one end. In a sense, creation is history. Against the background of the modern evolutionary world view, Teilhard de Chardin depicted the cosmos as a process of ascent, a series of unions. From very simple beginnings the path leads to ever greater and more complex unities, in which multiplicity is not abolished but merged into a growing synthesis, leading to the “Noosphere”, in which spirit and its understanding embrace the whole and are blended into a kind of living organism. Invoking the epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, Teilhard looks on Christ as the energy that strives toward the Noosphere and finally incorporates everything in its “fullness’. From here Teilhard went on to give a new meaning to Christian worship: the transubstantiated Host is the anticipation of the transformation and divinization of matter in the christological “fullness”. In his view, the Eucharist provides the movement of the cosmos with its direction; it anticipates its goal and at the same time urges it on.”
 * Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, (later Pope Benedict XVI), in Spirit of the Liturgy (2000)

 * Hardly anyone else has tried to bring together the knowledge of Christ and the idea of evolution as the scientist (paleontologist) and theologian Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., has done. … His fascinating vision … has represented a great hope, the hope that faith in Christ and a scientific approach to the world can be brought together. …  These brief references to Teilhard cannot do justice to his efforts. The fascination which Teilhard de Chardin exercised for an entire generation stemmed from his radical manner of looking at science and Christian faith together.
 * Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, in Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith (2007)

 * Man occupies a special place in the Cartesian scheme. He alone is endowed with mind. Descartes believed that animals did not possess one, that they were simply extremely complicated automatons. Other thinkers have rejected this point of view and proposed to endow all matter in the universe — living or inanimate — with consciousness. This "panpsychism" has been promoted by, among others, Teilhard de Chardin and, more recently by the British-American physicist Freeman Dyson, who holds that mind is present in every particle of matter.
 * Trinh Xuan Thuan, Chaos and Harmony (2001)

title: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


text:
The Lion King

The Lion King is a 1994 Disney animated film in which an East African lion cub and heir to the throne of Pride Rock learns his place in Africa's Tanzania's Serengeti. Tricked into thinking he killed his father, he flees into exile and abandons his identity as the future King, only to return years later to face his past.
 * ''Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. Screenplay by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. Songs by Tim Rice and Elton John.

Pumbaa

 * They call me MISTER PIG! [looses a war cry]
 * Hey, Timon! You better come look. I think he's still alive.

Simba

 * Little roar.. [scoffs]
 * Run. Run away, Scar and never return.

Scar

 * [to a mouse he is about to eat] Life's not fair, is it? You see, I... well, I shall never be king. And you... shall never see the light of another day. Adieu.

 * [digs his claws into Mufasa's paws] Long live the king. [throws Mufasa off the cliff]

 * Run away, Simba. Run. Run away, and never return.

 * Mufasa's death was a terrible tragedy. But to lose Simba, who had barely begun to live... For me, it is a deep personal loss. So it is with a heavy heart that I assume the throne. Yet, out of the ashes of this tragedy, we shall rise to greet the dawning of a new era, in which lion and hyena come together in a great and glorious future!

 * Temper, temper. I wouldn't dream of challenging you.

Dialogue

 * [After "The Circle of Life", a mouse appears onscreen, looking for food. A lion paw hits him, picks him up by the tail: the paw is revealed to be Scar’s.]
 * Scar: Life's not fair, is it? You see, I... well, I shall never be king. And you... shall never see the light of another day. Adieu. [about to eat the mouse]
 * Zazu: [out of nowhere] Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?
 * Scar: [sighs] What do you want?
 * Zazu: I'm here to announce King Mufasa's on his way, so you better have a good excuse for missing the ceremony this morning.
 * Scar: [sees the mouse escaped back to the hole] Oh, now, look, Zazu. You've made me lose my lunch.
 * Zazu: Ha! You'll lose more than that when the king gets through with you. He's as mad as a hippo with a hernia.
 * Scar: [sarcastically] Ooh, I quiver with fear!
 * Zazu: [backs away from Scar] Now, Scar, don't look at me that way! HELP!!!! [Scar traps him in his mouth]
 * Mufasa: [enters] Scar. [Scar looks back at him with his mouth full] Drop him.
 * Zazu: [pops his beak out of Scar's mouth] Impeccable timing, Your Majesty.
 * [Scar spits out Zazu, which he is now covered in lion slobber.]
 * Scar: [sarcastically overjoyed] Why, if it isn't my big brother descending from on high to mingle with the commoners.
 * Mufasa: Sarabi and I didn't see you at the presentation of Simba.
 * Scar: [faking astonishment] That was today? [he turns] Oh, I feel simply awful. [starts scraping his claws on the rock wall and Zazu cringes at the awful sound; admiring his claws] Must have slipped my mind.
 * Zazu: Yes, well, as slippery as your mind is, as the king's brother, you should have been first in line!
 * [Scar clicks his teeth at Zazu, who takes cover behind Mufasa's foreleg.]
 * Scar: Well, I was first in line... until the little hairball was born.
 * Mufasa: [lowering his head; to Scar] That "hairball" is my son, and your future king.
 * Scar: Oh, I shall practice my curtsy. [turns away and starts to exit]
 * Mufasa: [angrily] Don't turn your back on me, Scar.
 * Scar: [looking back] Oh, no, Mufasa. Perhaps you shouldn't turn your back on me.
 * Mufasa:	[roars ferociously and jumps in front of Scar, angrily baring his teeth] IS THAT A CHALLENGE?! [growls]
 * Scar: Temper, temper. [Mufasa stops growling] I wouldn't dream of challenging you.
 * Zazu: Pity. Why not?
 * Scar: [looks at Zazu] Well, as far as brains go, I got the lion's share, [looking at Mufasa] but when it comes to brute strength...I'm afraid I'm at the shallow end of the gene pool. [exits]
 * Zazu: [deep sigh] There's one in every family, sire. Two in mine, actually. [perches on Mufasa's shoulder] And they always manage to ruin special occasions.
 * Mufasa: What am I going to do with him?
 * Zazu: He'd make a very handsome throw rug.
 * Mufasa: [scorns playfully] Zazu.
 * Zazu: And just think: Whenever he gets dirty, you can take him out and beat him.
 * [Mufasa laughs]

 * Mufasa: Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.
 * Simba: But, Dad, don't we eat the antelope?
 * Mufasa: Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so, we are all connected in the great Circle of Life.
 * Zazu: [flies to rock] Good morning, sire!
 * Mufasa:	Good morning, Zazu.
 * Zazu: Checking in [land on rock] with the morning report.
 * Mufasa: Fire away.
 * Zazu: Well, the buzz from the bees is that the leopards are in a bit of a spot.
 * [Zazu's speech continues. Simba's and Mufasa's conversation starts]
 * Mufasa: Oh, really?
 * [Simba, uninterested in Zazu, pounces at a grasshopper and misses]
 * Zazu: [continuing, not noticing Mufasa's lack of enthusiasm] And the baboons are going ape over this. Of course, the giraffes are acting like they're above it all.
 * Mufasa: [to Simba] What are you doing, son?
 * Simba: [looking in his empty paws] Pouncing.
 * Mufasa: Let an old pro show you how it's done.
 * Zazu: The tick birds are pecking on the elephants. I told the elephants to forget it, but they can't.
 * Mufasa: Zazu, would you turn around?
 * Zazu: Yes, sire. [continuing immediately] The cheetahs are hard up, but I always say...
 * Mufasa: [whispering, to Simba] Stay low to the ground.
 * Zazu: ...cheetahs never prosper.
 * Simba: [whispering] Yeah, okay, stay low to the ground. Right. Yeah.
 * Zazu: [realizing something is amiss] What’s going on?
 * Mufasa: A pouncing lesson.
 * Zazu: Oh, very good. Pouncing. [realizing what Mufasa’s doing] Pouncing?! Oh, no, sire, you can't be serious. [Mufasa motions for Zazu to turn back around] Oh... this is so humiliating.
 * Mufasa: [still whispering] Try not to make a sound.
 * Zazu: What are you telling him, Mufasa? [looking around uneasily, Simba and Mufasa seem to have disappeared] Mufasa? Simba?
 * [Simba does a full pounce leaving Zazu stunned on the ground]
 * Mufasa: [laughs] That's very good. [laughs again]
 * Gopher: [emerges under Zazu] Zazu?
 * Zazu: [annoyed] Yes!
 * Gopher: [salutes] Sir, news from the underground.
 * Mufasa: [to Simba] Now, this time--
 * Zazu: [interrupting, with urgency] Sire! Hyenas! In the Pride Lands!
 * Mufasa: [in a serious manner] Zazu, take Simba home.
 * Simba: Oh, Dad, can't I come?
 * Mufasa:	[curtly] No, son. [heads off at a full gallop]
 * Simba: [scoffs, annoyed] I never get to go anywhere.
 * Zazu: Oh, young master, one day you will be king; then you can chase those slobbering mangy stupid poachers from dawn until dusk.

 * Simba: Hey, Uncle Scar, guess what?
 * Scar: I despise guessing games.
 * Simba: I'm gonna be King of Pride Rock.
 * Scar: [sarcastically] Oh, goody.
 * Simba: My dad just showed me the whole kingdom. And I'm gonna rule it all. Heheh.
 * Scar: Yes. Well, forgive me for not leaping for joy. Bad back, you know. [flops on his side]
 * Simba: Hey, Uncle Scar, when I'm king, what'll that make you?
 * Scar: A monkey's uncle.
 * Simba: [laughs] You're so weird!
 * Scar: You have no idea. So, your father showed you the whole kingdom, did he?
 * Simba: Everything.
 * Scar: He didn't show you what's beyond that rise at the northern border?
 * Simba: Well, no. He said I can't go there.
 * Scar: And he's absolutely right. It's far too dangerous. Only the bravest lions go there.
 * Simba: Well, I'm brave. What's out there?
 * Scar: [Interrupting] I'm sorry, Simba, I just can't tell you.
 * Simba: Why not?
 * Scar: [feigning concern] Simba, Simba, I'm only looking out for the well-being of my favorite nephew. [Scar rubs and pats Simba's head]
 * Simba: [snorts, sarcastically] Yeah, right. I'm your only nephew.
 * Scar: All the more reason for me to be protective. An elephant graveyard is no place for a young prince. [faking surprise] Oops!
 * Simba: [enthusiastically] An elephant what? Whoa.
 * Scar: [faking dismay] Oh, dear, I've said too much. Well, I suppose you'd have found out sooner or later, you, being so clever and all. [pulling Simba near] Oh, just do me one favor; Promise me you'll never visit that dreadful place.
 * Simba: [thinks, knowing that he’ll most likely go there anyway] No problem.
 * Scar: There's a good lad. You run along now and have fun. And remember; It's our little secret.
 * [Simba leaves the rock; Scar walks away with an evil smile]

 * Nala: I wonder if its brains are still in there.
 * Simba: There's only one way to know. C'mon. Let's go check it out.
 * [Zazu darts in front of him and blocks his path]
 * Zazu: Wrong! The only "checking out" you will do will be to check out of here.
 * Simba: Oh, man!
 * Zazu: We're way beyond the boundary of the Pride Lands.
 * Simba: Look, Banana Beak is scared.
 * Zazu: It's Mr. Banana Beak to you, fuzzy, and right now we are all in very real danger.
 * Simba: Danger? Ha. I walk on the wild side. I laugh in the face of danger.
 * [He lets out a haughty laugh, but soon it is followed by some boisterous laughter coming from inside the skull. He retires just as three hyenas, two male and one female, come out. These are Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, three of the worst hyenas in the Pride Lands. They slowly advance on the cubs]
 * Shenzi: Well, well, well, Banzai, what have we got here?
 * Banzai: I don't know, Shenzi. What do you think, Ed? [Ed laughs wildly] Yeah, just what I was thinkin’. A trio of trespassers!
 * Zazu: And quite by accident, let me assure you. A simple navigational error.
 * [He tries to back off, but Shenzi catches Zazu by his tail feathers]
 * Shenzi: Hey. Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. I know you. You're Mufasa's little stooge.
 * Zazu: I, madam, am the king's majordomo.
 * [The hyenas circle the cubs, eyeing them as a potential meal]
 * Banzai: And that would make you...?
 * Simba: The future king.
 * Shenzi: Do you know what we do to kings who step out of their kingdom?
 * Simba: [scoffs] You can't do anything to me.
 * Zazu: Uh, technically, they can. We are on their land.
 * Simba: But, Zazu, you told me they’re nothin’ but slobbering, mangy, stupid poachers.
 * Zazu: Ix-nay on the upid-stay.
 * Banzai: Who are you callin’ upid-stay?
 * Zazu: My, my, my. Oh, look at the sun! It's time to go!
 * [The cubs try to run, but Shenzi blocks their path]
 * Shenzi: What's the hurry? We'd love you to stick around for dinner.
 * Banzai: Yeah, we could have whatever's "lion" around!
 * Shenzi: Wait, wait, wait, I got one, I got one! Make mine a "cub" sandwich! Whatcha think? [Ed suddenly starts making strange noises and pointing off-screen] What, Ed? What is it?
 * Banzai: [looks to his right and sees what Ed's trying to say] Hey. Did we order this dinner to go?
 * Shenzi: No. Why?
 * Banzai: ‘Cause THERE IT GOES!
 * [the cubs take the opportunity to run for dear life. Suddenly, a paw yanks Zazu off-screen. He gives a surprised yelp. The two cubs stop to catch their breath]
 * Nala: Did we lose him?
 * Simba: I think so. Where's Zazu?
 * [Cut to a pit near a steam vent. Zazu's shadow is shown shrieking while Banzai pushes him towards it]
 * Banzai: The little majordomo bird hippity-hopped all the way to the birdie-boiler.
 * Zazu: Oh, no! Not the birdie-boiler! AAAAAH!!!!
 * [Zazu shoots up like a rocket. The hyenas laugh wildly at his misfortune, but are interrupted by an off-screen voice]
 * Simba: Hey! Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?
 * Shenzi: Like you?
 * Simba: Oops.
 * [Nala shrieks as Shenzi jumps up and tries to snap at her, but she and Simba run away. The two cubs don’t get too far before their path is blocked by some red smoke. The hyenas emerge from it]
 * Shenzi, Banzai and Ed: Boo!
 * [The cubs run like the dickens toward another elephant skull and almost evade Banzai's jaws. They slide down the skeleton's spine and fly away into another pile of bones. With the hyenas in pursuit, they climb up a ledge. Suddenly, Simba hears a shout behind him]
 * Nala: Simba!
 * [Simba turns and sees Nala sliding down the ledge with her enemies closing in. Simba runs to save her. Simba scratches Shenzi's face just as she is about to snap at Nala. She growls frustratingly at the mark he left while they run away. The cubs continue running and reach a deep circular ravine. Desperate to escape, they run up an elephant skeleton and try to climb up, but fall through some skin on the rib cage and gasp as their enemies close in]
 * Banzai: Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.
 * [Simba puffs up, but all that comes out is a weak, child-like roar]
 * Shenzi: That was it? [The hyenas laugh at Simba's feeble roar] Do it again. C'mon.
 * [Simba tries again, and strangely enough, an adult-like roar seemingly comes out. Nala is confused, as well as the hyenas.]
 * Hyenas: [confused] Huh?
 * [Suddenly, a large paw swipes at them. It belongs to Mufasa, who swipes at the hyenas as they try to escape. Meanwhile, Simba and Nala run for shelter. Then Mufasa pins the hyenas, who beg for mercy]
 * Hyenas: Oh, please, wait! Ow! Uncle, uncle!
 * Mufasa: SILENCE!!!!!
 * Banzai: Alright, c’mon, we're gonna shut up right now!
 * Shenzi: Calm down. We're really sorry.
 * Mufasa: If you ever come near my son again...
 * Shenzi: Oh, this is...this is your son?
 * Banzai: Oh, your son.
 * Shenzi: Did you know that?
 * Banzai: No. Me? I didn't know. Did you?
 * Shenzi: No. Of course not.
 * Banzai: No. [with Shenzi] Ed?
 * [Ed idiotically nods his head "yes" with an idiotic smile, while Mufasa lets out an angry warning roar]
 * Banzai: Toodles.
 * [The hyenas run off in fear. Zazu lands behind Mufasa and gives a smiling "That'll show 'em!" gesture, but soon retracts it after Mufasa frowns at him. Simba and Nala come out of their hiding place. The former, knowing what danger he's in, tries to explain himself]
 * Simba: Dad, I--
 * Mufasa: [sternly] You deliberately disobeyed me.
 * Simba: Dad, I'm...I'm sorry.
 * Mufasa: Let's go home.
 * [Zazu turns back in worry, feeling bad about having snitched on Simba, who walks behind his father, his head bowed in disgrace]
 * Nala: I thought you were very brave.
 * [As Mufasa leads them out of the ravine, Scar watches from atop a cliff wall, angry at his nephew's resilience and his brother's meddling]

 * [after Mufasa rescued Simba and Nala, they're all heading back to Pride Rock at sunset.]
 * Mufasa: Zazu!
 * Zazu: [flies to land in front of Mufasa] Yes, sire?
 * Mufasa: Take Nala home. [turns sternly to Simba] I've got to teach my son a lesson.
 * [Simba downs his head to the grass in shame, Zazu flies to him and Nala]
 * Zazu: Come, Nala. [to Simba] Simba. [sighs] Good luck.
 * [Zazu and Nala leaves the scene with Simba sadly looking back at her.]
 * Mufasa: Simba!
 * [Simba get up and starts slowly walking, but sees his pawprints on the ground. He slowly walks to Mufasa and sits next to him and looks up at him. Mufasa closes his eyes.]
 * Mufasa: Simba, I'm very disappointed in you.
 * Simba: I know.
 * Mufasa: You could've been killed! You deliberately disobeyed me, and what's worse, you put Nala in danger!
 * Simba: [almost cries] I was just trying to be brave like you.
 * Mufasa: I'm only brave when I have to be. Simba, being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble.
 * Simba: But you're not scared of anything.
 * Mufasa: I was today.
 * Simba: You were?
 * Mufasa: Yes. I thought I might lose you.
 * Simba: I guess even kings gets scared, huh?
 * Mufasa: Mm-hmm.
 * Simba: And you know what?
 * Mufasa: What?
 * Simba: I think those hyenas were even scareder.
 * Mufasa: [chuckles] 'Cause nobody messes with your dad. Come here, you. [gives Simba a knucklehead]
 * Simba: No, no! Ah! Ugh! [he and Mufasa laugh as he happily lunge and tackle him] Dad?
 * Mufasa: Hmm?
 * Simba: We're pals, right?
 * Mufasa: Right.
 * Simba: And we'll always be together, right?
 * Mufasa: Simba, let me tell you something that my father told me. Look at the stars. The great kings of the past look down on us from those stars.
 * Simba: Really?
 * Mufasa: Yes. So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you. And so will I.

 * [While Shenzi, Banzai and Ed are waiting.]
 * Shenzi: [Banzai's stomach growls] Shut up.
 * Banzai: I can't help it. I'm so hungry. [jumps up] I gotta have a wildebeest!
 * Shenzi: Stay put.
 * Banzai: Can’t I just pick off one of the little sick ones?
 * Shenzi: No! We wait for the signal from Scar. [Scar enters from the hilltop] There he is. Let's go.

 * [After Scar killed Mufasa, the gorge is now dust from the wildebeest stampede. Simba is looking for Mufasa.]
 * Simba: [coughs] Dad! [hears something] Dad? [A lone wildebeest runs through; he finds Mufasa who is now dead and walks slowly to him.] Dad? Dad, come on. You gotta get up. Dad? We gotta go home. [He tries to wake him up, to no avail. His tears start to well up.] HELP! Somebody! Anybody! [starts crying] Help.
 * [Simba tearfully walks to his dead father and lays down with him. Scar enters to see Simba with dead Mufasa.]
 * Scar: Simba. [Simba looks at Scar in shock] What have you done?
 * Simba: [sadly] There were wildebeests, and he tried to save me. It was an accident. I didn't mean for it to happen.
 * Scar: [pulls Simba away to hug him; feigning concern] Of course. Of course you didn't. No one ever means for these things to happen, but the king is dead. And if it weren't for you, he'd still be alive. [gasps] What would your mother think?
 * Simba: What am I gonna do?
 * Scar: Run away, Simba. [Simba looks at dead Mufasa, then back at Scar in fear] Run. Run away, and never return. [Simba starts running away from his dead father in fear. Shenzi, Banzai and Ed enters.] Kill him.

 * [After Banzai landed in the cactus, causing pain.]
 * Shenzi: [sees Simba getting away] Hey, hey! There he goes! There he goes!
 * Banzai: So go get him.
 * Shenzi: There ain't no way I'm goin’ in there. What, you want me to come out lookin’ like you, cactus butt?
 * Banzai: [spits a cactus quill at Ed's nose] But we gotta finish the job.
 * Shenzi: Well, he's as good as dead out there anyway. And if he comes back, we'll kill him.
 * Banzai: [yells to Simba] YEAH!! YA HEAR THAT?! IF YOU EVER COME BACK, WE'LL KILL YA!!
 * [The two words, "KILL YA!!" echoes many times, as hyenas laugh and return to Pride Lands.]

 * [Simba is laid in the middle of the desert; the buzzards are flying around him in circles and all land. Then Timon and Pumbaa enter with a charge.]
 * Timon and Pumbaa: HYAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!
 * Timon: [shooing the buzzards] Get out! Get out! Get out of here!
 * Pumbaa: I love it!
 * Timon: Whoo!
 * Pumbaa: Bowling for buzzards!
 * Timon: Hee-hee-hee! Gets 'em every time.
 * Pumbaa: [spots Simba] Uh-oh. Hey, Timon, you better come look. I think he's still alive.
 * Timon: Yeesh. All righty, what have we got here? [sniffs around Simba, and lifts his paw] Jeez, it's a lion! Run, Pumbaa, move it!
 * Pumbaa: Hey, Timon, it's just a little lion. Look at him. He's so cute and all alone. Can we keep him?
 * Timon: Pumbaa, are you nuts? You're talkin’ about a lion. Lions eat guys like us.
 * Pumbaa: But he's so little.
 * Timon: He's gonna get bigger.
 * Pumbaa: Maybe he'll be on our side.
 * Timon: That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Maybe he'll be-- [gets an idea] Hey, I got it. What if he's on our side? You know, havin’ a lion around might not be such a bad idea.
 * Pumbaa: So, we're keepin’ him?
 * Timon: Of course. Who's the brains of this outfit?
 * Pumbaa: [picks Simba up with his tusk] Uh...
 * Timon: My point exactly. Jeez, I'm fried. [he and Pumbaa walk off, carrying Simba] Let's get outta here, and find some shade.

 * Adult Simba: Relax, Timon.

 * Adult Simba: [As he and Nala are walking in the jungle] Isn't this a great place?
 * Adult Nala: It is beautiful. But I don't understand something. You've been alive all this time. Why didn't you come back to Pride Rock?
 * Adult Simba: [climbs in the vines] Well, I just needed to get out on my own. Live my own life. And I did. And it's great.
 * Adult Nala: We've really needed you back home.
 * Adult Simba: No one needs me.
 * Adult Nala: Yes, we do. You're the king.
 * Adult Simba: Nala, we've been through this. I'm not the king. Scar is.
 * Adult Nala: Simba. He let the hyenas take over the Pride Lands.
 * Adult Simba: [shocked] What?
 * Adult Nala: Everything is destroyed. There's no food. No water. Simba, if you don't do something soon, everyone will starve.
 * Adult Simba: I can't go back.
 * Adult Nala: Why?!
 * Adult Simba: You wouldn't understand.
 * Adult Nala: What wouldn’t I understand?!
 * Adult Simba: No, no, no. It doesn't matter. Hakuna Matata.
 * Adult Nala: What?
 * Adult Simba: Hakuna Matata. It's something I learned out here. Look, sometimes bad things happen...
 * Adult Nala: Simba!
 * Adult Simba: ...and there's nothing you can do about it. So why worry?
 * Adult Nala: Because it's your responsibility.
 * Adult Simba: What about you, you left?
 * Adult Nala: I left to find help, and I found you! Don't you understand?! You are our only hope.
 * Adult Simba: Sorry.
 * Adult Nala: What's happened to you? You're not the Simba I remember.
 * Adult Simba: You're right. I'm not. Now are you satisfied?
 * Adult Nala: No, just disappointed.
 * Adult Simba: You know, you're starting to sound like my father. [starts walking away]
 * Adult Nala: Good. At least one of us does.
 * Adult Simba: [shocked at what Nala said, angrily turns to her] Listen, you think you can just show up and tell me how to live my life?! You don't even know what I've been through!
 * Adult Nala: [worried] I would if you just tell me!
 * Adult Simba: [angrily walking away] Forget it!
 * Adult Nala: [angrily] Fine! [angrily turns her head away]

 * Rafiki: Look down there.
 * Adult Simba: [looks into a pond of water] That's not my father. That's just my reflection.
 * Rafiki: No, look harder. [he touches the water; as it ripples, Simba's reflection changes to that of Mufasa] You see? He lives in you.
 * Mufasa’s Spirit: [from above] Simba.
 * Adult Simba: Father?
 * [Simba sees his father's spirit in the sky]
 * Mufasa’s Spirit: Simba, you have forgotten me.
 * Adult Simba: No. How could I?
 * Mufasa’s Spirit: You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Circle of Life.
 * Adult Simba: How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be.
 * Mufasa’s Spirit: [now fully formed in the sky] Remember who you are. You are my son, and the one true King. Remember who you are.
 * [Mufasa’s spirit begins to fade away]
 * Adult Simba: No! Please don’t leave me!
 * Mufasa’s Spirit: Remember.
 * Adult Simba: Father!
 * Mufasa’s Spirit: Remember.
 * Adult Simba: Don’t leave me!
 * Mufasa’s Spirit: Remember.
 * Rafiki: What was that? [laughs] The weather. [scoffs] Very peculiar. Don't you think?
 * Adult Simba: Yeah. Looks like the winds are changing.
 * Rafiki: Ahhh. Change is good.
 * Adult Simba: Yeah, but it's not easy. I know what I have to do. But going back means I'll have to face my past. I've been running from it for so long.
 * [Rafiki hits Simba on the head with his stick]
 * Adult Simba: Ow! Jeez, what was that for?
 * Rafiki: It doesn't matter. It's in the past. [laughs]
 * Adult Simba: Yeah, but it still hurts.
 * Rafiki: Oh yes, the past can hurt. But from the way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it. [swings his stick again at Simba, who ducks out of the way] Ha. You see? So, what are you going to do?
 * Adult Simba: First, I'm gonna take your stick.
 * [Simba snatches Rafiki's stick and throws it and Rafiki runs to grab it]
 * Rafiki: No, no, no, no, not the stick! Hey! Where are you going?!
 * Adult Simba: I'm going back.
 * Rafiki: GOOD! GO ON! GET OUT OF HERE!
 * [Rafiki begins laughing and screeching louder]

 * [Simba, Nala, Timon and Pumbaa make it to the Pride Lands and see thousands of hyenas]
 * Timon: Hyenas. I hate hyenas. [whispering, to Simba] So what’s your plan for gettin’ past those guys?
 * Adult Simba: Live bait.
 * Timon: Good idea. [realizing] Hey!
 * Adult Simba: Come on, Timon. You guys have to create a diversion.
 * Timon: What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?
 * [Suddenly, the sound of bongo drums gets the hyenas' attention. Timon dances the hula while Pumbaa appears as a roasted pig with an apple in his mouth. Simba and Nala sneak stealthily side-by-side without the hyenas noticing]
 * Timon: Luau! [sings] ♪ If you're hungry for a hunk of fat and juicy meat, eat my buddy Pumbaa here because he is a treat. Come on down and dine on this tasty swine, all you have to do is get in line. A-a-a-are you achin'... ♪
 * Pumbaa: Yup, yup, yup.
 * Timon: ♪ For some bacon? ♪
 * Pumbaa: Yup, yup, yup.
 * Timon: ♪ He's a big pig. ♪
 * Pumbaa: Yup, yup.
 * Timon: ♪ You could be a big pig too. Oi! ♪
 * [Timon and Pumbaa shriek in fear and run away with the hyenas in hot pursuit]

 * Scar: Simba? Simba! I'm a little surprised to see you... alive.
 * Adult Simba: [sternly] Give me one good reason why I shouldn't rip you apart.
 * Scar: Oh, Simba, you must understand. The pressures of ruling a kingdom...
 * Adult Simba: Are no longer yours. Step down, Scar.
 * Scar: Well, I would, actually. However, there is one little problem. You see them? [referring to the hyenas] They think I'm king.
 * Adult Nala: Well, we don't. Simba's the rightful king.
 * Adult Simba: The choice is yours, Scar. Either step down or fight.
 * Scar: Oh, must this all end in violence? I'd hate to be responsible for the death of a family member. Wouldn't you agree, Simba?
 * Adult Simba: That's not gonna work, Scar! I've put it behind me!
 * Scar: But what about your faithful subjects? Have they put it behind them?
 * Adult Nala: Simba, what is he talking about?
 * Scar: Ahh, so you haven't told them your little secret. Well, Simba, now's your chance to tell them. Tell them who is responsible for Mufasa's death.
 * Adult Simba: [after a pause, somberly] I am.
 * Sarabi: [whispering] It's not true. Tell me it's not true.
 * Adult Simba: [somberly] It's true.
 * Scar: [angrily] You see? He admits it. Murderer!
 * Adult Simba: No! It was an accident!
 * Scar: If it weren't for you, Mufasa would still be alive. It's your fault he's dead. Do you deny it?
 * Adult Simba: No.
 * Scar: Then you're guilty.
 * Adult Simba: No, I'm not a murderer!
 * Scar: Oh, Simba, you're in trouble again. But this time, Daddy isn't here to save you. And now, everyone knows why!
 * [Simba falls at the edge of a cliff]
 * Adult Nala: SIMBA!
 * [lightning strikes patch of dry land, igniting a fire]
 * Scar: [looking at Simba who is clinging to the edge of the cliff] Now, this looks familiar. Hmm. Where have I seen this before? Let me think. Hmm. Oh, yes, I remember. This is just the way your father looked before he died. [he claws Simba's paws the same way he did to Mufasa] And here's my little secret. [whispers] I killed Mufasa. ''[Simba's eyes widen. In a flashback, Mufasa plummets into the gorge, with young Simba watching in horror while screaming "NO-O-O-O-O-O-O!". Back in the present, a furious Simba leaps back up and pounces on Scar]
 * Adult Simba: [lividly] NO-O-O-O-O-O-O! MURDERER!!!
 * Scar: No, Simba! Please!
 * Adult Simba: [furiously] Tell them the truth.
 * Scar: Truth? But truth is in the eye of the behold... [Simba chokes him] All right. All right! [quietly] I did it.
 * Adult Simba: [angrily] So they can hear you.
 * Scar: [louder] I killed Mufasa.

 * [Timon and Zazu are cornered by the hyenas; Zazu is trapped in an animal carcass]
 * Timon: Please don't eat me!
 * Pumbaa: Drop him!
 * Banzai: Hey! Who's the pig?
 * Pumbaa: Are you talking to me?
 * Timon: Uh-oh, he called him the pig.
 * Pumbaa: Are you talking to me?!
 * Timon: Shouldn't have done that.
 * Pumbaa: ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?!
 * Timon: Now they're in for it!
 * Pumbaa: THEY CALL ME MR. PIG!!! [he furiously screams and angrily charges at the hyenas]

 * Adult Simba: [coldly] Murderer.
 * Scar: Simba, Simba, please. Please have mercy, I beg you.
 * Adult Simba: [angrily] You don't deserve to live.
 * Scar: But, Simba, I am, uh, family. It's the hyenas who are the real enemy. It was their fault. [the hyenas back away and growl in retaliation] It was their idea.
 * Adult Simba: Why should I believe you? Everything you ever told me was a lie.
 * Scar: What are you going to do? You wouldn't kill your own uncle.
 * Adult Simba: No, Scar. I'm not like you.
 * Scar: Oh, Simba, thank you. You are truly noble. I'll make it up to you, I promise. How can I, uh, prove myself to you? Tell me, I mean, anything.
 * Adult Simba: Run. Run away, Scar. And never return.
 * Scar: Yes. Of course. As you wish, Your Majesty! [swipes ember in Simba’s face temporarily blinding him]

Taglines

 * See it for the first time ever in 3D (2011 3D re-release)
 * The greatest adventure of all is finding our place in the circle of life.
 * The King Has Returned. [for Christmas 2002 IMAX release.]
 * The Circle of Life

Cast

 * Matthew Broderick — Adult Simba
 * Jonathan Taylor Thomas — Daraada
 * Nathan Lane — Timon
 * Ernie Sabella — Pumbaa
 * James Earl Jones — Mufasa
 * Moira Kelly — Adult Nala
 * Niketa Calame — Young Nala
 * Jeremy Irons — Scar
 * Whoopi Goldberg — Shenzi
 * Cheech Marin — Banzai
 * Jim Cummings — Ed
 * Robert Guillaume — Rafiki
 * Rowan Atkinson — Zazu
 * Madge Sinclair — Sarabi
 * Zoe Leader — Sarafina

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Lion King


text:
Will Cuppy

William Jacob "Will" Cuppy (August 23, 1884 – September 19, 1949) was an American humorist and literary critic, known for his satirical books about nature and historical figures.

Quotes

 * Borrowing has a bad name, but you would be surprised how it helps in a pinch.

 * I borrow to pay my honest debts and not to squander foolishly. What's more, I confine my borrowing to those who can well afford it. I don't go around sponging on widows and orphans unless they have plenty.
 * Retrieved on June 25, 2012.

 * I think you are absolutely right about everything, except I think humor springs from rage, hay fever, overdue rent and miscellaneous hell.
 * From a letter to Max Eastman, 1936, about Eastman's book, The Enjoyment of Laughter ISBN 0-38413-740-7 (reprint). Eastman mss., Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.

 * 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.
 * Comic interview with Jo Ranson, "Living from Can to Mouth," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Eagle Magazine, November 24, 1929, p. 5.

 * I am billed as a humorist, but of course I am a tragedian at heart.
 * Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft (eds.), Twentieth Century Authors, New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1942, p. 342.

How to Be a Hermit (1929)

 * I only know that all is lost, and that nothing can help me unless I inherit money, strike oil or go to work.
 * Coffee, Please!

 * Ah, well! We live and learn, or, anyway, we live.
 * The Hermit's Emergency Shelf

How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931)

 * The Modern Man or Nervous Wreck is the highest of all mammals because anyone can see that he is. There are about 2,000,000,000 Modern Men, or too many. The Modern Man's highly developed brain has made him what he is and you know what he is. [Footnote: It is because of his brain that he has risen above the animals. Guess which animals he has risen above.]
 * The Modern Man

 * [Footnote:]Each male has from 2 to 790 females with whom he discusses current events. Of these he marries from 3 to 17.
 * The Modern Man

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

 * Aristotle described the Crow as chaste. In some departments of knowledge, Aristotle was too innocent for his own good.
 * The Crow

 * Male penguins are unfaithful up to an advanced age, a phenomenon sometimes attributed to the sea air.
 * The Penguin

 * [Footnote:] The Dotterel weighs only four ounces. It has long been a scientific riddle how so much wrong-headedness can manage to exist in so small a space. Still, there's the Least Gnatcatcher.
 * The Dotterel

 * [Footnote:] 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.
 * The Dotterel

 * To the seeing eye life is mostly Sparrows.
 * The Sparrow

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

 * [Footnote:] Much still remains to be learned about his sex life because the Hummingbird is quicker than the eye.
 * The Hummingbird

 * [Footnote:] 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.
 * The Lion

 * [Footnote:] To give the Beaver his due, he does things because he has to do them, not because he believes that hard work per se will somehow make him a better Beaver -- the Beaver may be dumb, but he is not that dumb! The Beaver was made to gnaw, and gnaw he does. There you have him in a nutshell.
 * The Beaver

 * [Footnote:] Pliny the Elder described a Whale called "Balaena or Whirlpool, which is so long and broad as to take up more in length and breadth than two acres of ground." This brings up again the old question: Are the classics doomed? Our ancestors believed that four years of this sort of information would inevitably produce a President, or at least a Cabinet Member. It didn't seem to work out that way.
 * The Whale

 * The Zebra is striped all over so that the Lion can see him and eat him. Some people say he is striped so that the Lion can not see him. These people believe that the stripes of the Zebra simulate the bars of sunlight falling through the tall jungle grasses and that therefore the Zebra is invisible and that the earth is flat.
 * The Zebra

How to Become Extinct (1941)

 * The father guards the nest and fans it with his pectoral fins until the children are able to shift for themselves. Then he eats them. [Footnote: He does this because of his altruistic (parental) instinct. The higher one rises in the vertebrate scale the more altruistic one becomes. The higher vertebrates are just one mass of altruism.]
 * The Three-Spined Stickleback

 * Even as a child back in Indiana, whenever I took a Butterbelly off the hook I used to ask myself, "Does this fish think?" I would even ask others, "Do you suppose this Butterbelly can think?" And all I would get in reply was a look. At the age of eighteen, I left the state.
 * Do Fish Think, Really?

 * [Footnote:] The female of any species is generally regarded as a relatively anabolic organism, more passive than the male, who is relatively katabolic and active. The fact remains that one frequently runs across a rather katabolic female.
 * The Viviparous Blenny

 * [Footnote:] The head of a Pike, served at supper, is said to have caused the death from terror of Theodoric the Goth, who imagined the fish's features to be those of Symmachus, a man he had just killed. But for this story, we of today would have no idea what Symmachus looked like.
 * The Pike

 * As Darwin puts it in The Descent of Man, "Male snakes, though appearing so sluggish, are amorous." Isn't that just like Darwin? It was one of his main ideas, you know, that the males of almost all animals have stronger passions than the females. Since then we've learned a thing or two. At any rate, the female snake is right there when spring arrives in the woods.
 * Own Your Own Snake

 * [Footnote:] We have no Common Vipers in the United States, but we have worse.
 * The Common Viper

 * Other countries may boast of this and that, but nobody can touch the United States for poisonous snakes. We have about twenty species, most of them deadly, and Europe has only five or six, none of them much good. We have fifteen kinds of Rattlesnakes alone and nobody else has even one. [Footnote: There is a species in Central and South America, but it probably came from here.]
 * The Rattlesnake

 * [Footnote:] A few Cobras in your home will soon clear it of Rats and Mice. Of course, you will still have the Cobras.
 * The Cobra

 * [Footnote:] Most people erroneously call this snake the Puff Adder, Beach Adder, or Blowing Viper. So, naturally, they kill it.
 * The Hog-Nosed Snake

 * If you annoy the Hog-nosed Snake enough, he will roll over on his back and play dead. If you turn him right-side up, he will roll over to prove that he is dead. [Footnote:] While he is playing dead, you can go straight up to him and step on his head or smash him with a big club.
 * The Hog-Nosed Snake

 * [Footnote:] The Chameleon's face reminded Aristotle of a Baboon. Aristotle wasn't much of a looker himself.
 * The Chameleon

 * [Footnote:] Three million alligators were killed in Florida between 1880 and 1900. Goody!
 * The Alligator

 * Right here I might offer a word of advice to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, now the rarest bird on the North American continent and one that is going to come in for more and more attention. Keep away from bird lovers, fellows, or you'll be standing on a little wooden pedestal with a label containing your full name in Latin: Campephilus principalis. People will be filing past admiring your glossy blue-black feathers, your white stripes and patches, your nasal plumes in front of lores, your bright red crest and your beady yellow eyes. You'll be in the limelight, but you won't know it. I don't want to alarm you fellows, but there are only about twenty of you alive as I write these lines, but there are more than two hundred of you in American museums and in collections owned by Ivory-billed Woodpecker enthusiasts. Get it?
 * And I Ought to Know

 * 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.
 * The Dinosaur

 * During the Cretaceous Period many of the inland seas dried up, leaving the Plesiosaurs stranded without any fish. Just about that time Mother Nature scrapped the whole Age of Reptiles and called for a new deal. And you can see what she got. [Footnote: Here we see the working of another Law of Nature: No water, no fish.]
 * The Plesiosaur

 * We do not really know why the Woolly Mammoth became extinct. Early Man killed some of them, of course. But most of the time Early Man stayed right in his cave, holding hands with Early Woman. I wouldn't know what the Woolly Mammoth did about that sort of thing. Not nearly enough, I suspect.
 * The Woolly Mammoth

 * 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.
 * The Dodo

How to Attract the Wombat (1949)

 * [Footnote:] An Ant on a hot stove-lid runs faster than an Ant on a cold one. Who wouldn't?
 * The Ant, from Insects for Everybody

 * 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.
 * The Bee, from Insects for Everybody

 * Then there's the law that any person found carrying a Swanhook, the same being neither a Swanherd in good standing nor accompanied by two certified Swanherds, or Swannerds (or Swanners, or Swanmasters), of known probity, should cough up thirteen shillings fourpence, three shillings fourpence going to the informer and the rest to the King. This looked like a fine bit of legislation until it developed that you can't collect from such people. They haven't got it. That's why they're out stealing Swans.
 * Swan-Upping, Indeed!

 * [Footnote:] Pliny the Elder perished in 79 A.D. when he refused to flee from the great eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, insisting that everything would be all right. It wasn't.
 * The Ostrich, from Birds Who Can't Even Fly

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950)

 * Compiled posthumously by Fred Feldkamp

Cheops, or Khufu

 * 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.

 * 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.

 * Although this structure [the Great Pyramid of Giza] failed as a tomb, it is one of the wonders of the world even today because it is the largest thing ever built for the wrong reason.

 * He [Khufu] had discovered the fact that if you tell somebody to do something, nine times out of ten he will do it.

 * [About experts' disbelief that Egyptians could build pyramids] It hardly seems possible that the ancient Egyptians were as smart as these experts. Still, they went right ahead and did it, and you can draw your own conclusions.

 * The fact is that building a pyramid is fairly easy, aside from the lifting. You just pile up stones in receding layers, placing one layer carefully upon another, and pretty soon you have a pyramid. You can't help it. In other words, it is not in the nature of a pyramid to fall down. [Footnote: It probably could not fall down if it tried.]

 * Egyptologists say they have no idea what Khufu was doing when he was not building pyramids, since he left no inscriptions describing his daily activities, and they would give a good deal to know. Then they say he had six wives and a harem full of concubines. They do not seem to make the connection, but you get it and I get it. We do not need any hieroglyphics to inform us that Khufu dropped around occasionally to see how things were getting along and to tell the ladies how many cubic yards of limestone he had laid that afternoon.

Hatshepsut

 * He [Thutmose III] went to Asia with his army and killed the natives to his heart's content, and stole so much of their goods that Egypt was rolling in wealth for quite a while. Thutmose III was thus one of the earliest exponents of internationalism, or going into other countries and slaughtering the inhabitants.

Pericles

 * They [Xanthippus, Aristides the Just, and Themistocles] all won lasting renown by constantly accusing one another of peculation and fraud and calling names at election time.

 * [Footnote] Pericles immediately banished his strongest rival, Cimon, who had achieved popularity by bringing the bones of Theseus, slayer of the Minotaur, back to Athens from the island of Scyros. As Theseus was a myth, he could hardly have had any bones. Nevertheless, Cimon brought them back.

 * 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.

 * 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.

 * As the average Athenian citizen was not awfully bright, it was necessary to have a great many of them on each jury. … They did not have to prove that they were completely ignorant before they were accepted as jurymen. That was taken for granted.

Alexander the Great

 * Alexander III of Macedonia was born in 356 B.C., on the sixth day of the month of Lous. He is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time. (Footnote) He did this in order to impress Greek culture upon them. Alexander was not strictly a Greek and he was not cultured, but that was his story, and who am I to deny it?

 * He [Philip II] subdued the Greeks after they had knocked themselves out in the Peloponnesian War and appointed himself Captain General so that he could uphold the ideals of Hellas. The main ideal of Hellas was to get rid of Philip, but he didn't count that one.

 * 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.

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

Hannibal

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

 * [Footnote] 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] The Phoenicians employed an alphabet of twenty-one consonants. They left no literature. You can't be literary without a few vowels.

 * Hamilcar also told Hannibal about elephants and how you must always have plenty of these animals to scare the enemy. He attributed much of his own success to elephants and believed they would have won the First Punic War for him if things hadn't gone slightly haywire; for the war had turned into a naval affair. But even when the fighting was on land, the Romans did not scare nearly so well as expected. The Romans had learned about elephants while fighting Pyrrhus, whose elephants defeated him in 275 B.C., and even before that, in Alexander's time, King Porus had been undone by his own elephants. Thus, if history had taught any one thing up to that time, it was never to use elephants in war.

 * Then Hamilcar … was drowned in 228 B.C. while crossing a stream with a herd of elephants.

 * 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.

 * Whenever a thousand or so of his men would fall off an Alp, he [Hannibal] would tell the rest to cheer up, the elephants were all right. If someone had given him a shove at the right moment, much painful history might have been avoided.

 * [Footnote] 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.

 * 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.

 * And he [Hannibal] probably believed, up to the very end, that everything might still come out right if he only had a few you-know-whats.

Cleopatra

 * 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.

 * [Footnote] The first of Caesar's three marriages — to Cornelia, a very rich girl — resulted tragically. Sylla, Caesar's enemy, confiscated her dowry soon after the wedding.

Nero

 * 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.

 * [Footnote] At the age of twelve Nero had shown a lively interest in the arts, particularly music, painting, sculpture, and poetry. Why was nothing done about this?

Attila the Hun

 * Attila was now sixtyish. His mind was weakening and he decided to marry again, as he had been terribly misunderstood the first three hundred times.

Charlemagne

 * Charlemagne lived away back in the Dark Ages when people were not very bright. They have been getting brighter and brighter ever since, until finally they are like they are now.

 * The Franks had all been German at first, but some of them had taken to eating frogs and snails and were gradually turning into Frenchmen, a fact not generally known at the time because there were no French as yet.

 * Charlemagne's strong point was morals. He was so moral that some people thought he was only fooling. These people came to no good.

 * Whenever he [Charlemagne] decided to help somebody's morals, people would bury their small change and hide in the swamps and forests.

Lucrezia Borgia

 * [on the Borgias' illegitimate births] All children are natural, but some are more so than others and are therefore known as natural children.

 * 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.

 * She [Lucrezia] also had bright yellow hair, which she washed once a week with a mixture of saffron, box shavings, wood ash, barley straw, madder, cumin seed, and one thing and another to bring out the hidden glints and restore its natural color. You left it on your head for twenty-four hours and washed it off with lye made from cabbage stalks, the only hazard of which was the second-degree burn. If your hair remained on the scalp, you were a blonde.

Philip the Sap

 * 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.

Louis XIV

 * Other kings let their ministers make their mistakes for them, but Louis insisted on making the important mistakes personally.

 * 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.

 * As you may be aware, Louis XIV built Versailles, a large, drafty place full of Louis Quatorze furniture and Madame de Montespan.

Madame du Barry

 * Thenceforth Jeanne's deeper infatuations always seemed to concern gentlemen of a certain age and standing in the financial world. Older men say such interesting things, and Jeanne was always a good listener. Anything you said was news to her.

 * After a while Louis let her [du Barry] draw her own drafts on the comptroller-general. It saved time and bother in a field he much disliked. Jeanne never took more than she needed for urgent current expenses — that is, whatever was in the treasury.

 * She was one of the victims of the French Revolution, a thing thought up by some philosophers who wished to make the world a better place to live in. They wanted all the French to be free and equal and happy, and they tried to bring this about by decapitating as many of them as possible.

Catherine the Great

 * Her early years were very unhappy, and she decided she would have a good time if she ever got a chance. Later on, she overdid it a little.

 * As Catherine learned later that night [her wedding night], Russia makes strange bedfellows. Peter got into bed with his boots on, played with his collection of dolls for an hour or so, and told the Grand Duchess about his new mistresses. [Footnote: He had no mistresses, really, but he thought he had. It was all in his head.]

 * Catherine announced that he died of hemorrhoidal colic, and people who went to the funeral wondered why, in that case, the large bandage was tied around his neck. And that, gentle reader, is what comes from playing with dolls at the wrong time.

Frederick the Great

 * 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.

 * [Footnote] 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.

 * The more snuff Frederick took, the more memoirs he wrote. He loved literature, but not enough to let it alone and stop trying to improve it.

William the Conqueror

 * The Bayeux Tapestry is accepted as an authority on many details of life and the fine points of history in the eleventh century. For instance, the horses in those days had green legs, blue bodies, yellow manes, and red heads, while the people were all double-jointed and quite different from what we generally think of as human beings.

Henry VIII

 * Henry VIII had so many wives because his dynastic sense was very strong whenever he saw a maid of honor.

Elizabeth

 * She was the most intelligent woman of her day and she refused to get married in nine languages.

George III

 * The colonists, it seems, had to "pay taxes to which their consent had never been asked." [Footnote: Today we pay taxes but our consent has been asked, and we have told the government to go ahead and tax us all they want to. We like it.]

Christopher Columbus

 * He believed you could reach the East by going west. That is true enough, if you don't overdo it. You can reach Long Island City by taking the ferry for Weehawken, but nobody does it on purpose.

 * On the fourth voyage, Columbus sailed along the coast of Central America trying to find the mouth of the Ganges River. It wasn't there, somehow.

Montezuma

 * Montezuma had a weak and vacillating nature. He never knew what to do next. [Footnote: He had the courage of his convictions, but he had no convictions.]

 * The Aztecs were very sore, because Montezuma had no business giving the national treasury to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanted it. So Montezuma appeared on the roof of the palace and told them that Mexico had definitely turned the corner and everything would be all right from then on if they would just leave it to him. And one of the Aztecs picked up a big rock and hit Montezuma on the head with it, and that was the last of Montezuma II.

 * [Footnote] 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.

Captain John Smith

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

 * 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.

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

Miles Standish

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

 * If the Pilgrims were looking for freedom of conscience, they came to just the right place. In America, everybody's conscience is unusually free.

 * The moral of the story of the Pilgrims is that if you work hard all your life and behave yourself every minute and take no time out for fun you will break practically even, if you can borrow enough money to pay your taxes.

How to Get from January to December (1951)

 * Armadillos make affectionate pets, if you need affection that much.

 * Sartor Resartus is simply unreadable, and for me that always sort of spoils a book.

Quotes about Will Cuppy

 * If I were king of radio, mighty monarch of the air lanes, I would make Will Cuppy the master of ceremonies on all programs, because he has the nonchalance and grace of the genuine man-about-town. His quips are as fresh as traffic cops and his delivery leaves this corner as happy as a comedian who has just found a sponsor.
 * Jo Ranson, radio columnist for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Eagle Magazine of Features, February 25, 1934, p. 6.

 * He had the haunted look of the true humorist.
 * William Rose Benét, Saturday Review of Literature, vol. XXX, no. 42, Oct. 15, 1949, p. 40.

 * His style of humor is unique and, like the taste of an avocado, a little hard to describe.
 * He was probably the most diligent fact excavator since Gibbon; what he didn't know about a subject, once he had decided to spoof it, wasn't worth knowing.
 * Lionel Olay, Saturday Review of Literature, vol. XXXIII, no. 50, December 16, 1950, p. 16.

title: Will Cuppy