Melissa Kaplan's
Herp Care Collection
Last updated October 2, 2003

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Quotations and Poems

Poems
Quotes

Poems
Four Preludes to Playthings Of The Wind (Sandburg)
Haiku (Kaplan)
Rime of the Barking Iguana (Rice)

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
in such a fix to be so fertile.
- Ogden Nash [Chelonians]

I objurate the centipede
A bug we do not really need.
At sleepy-time he beats a path
Straight to the bedroom or bath.
You always wallop where he's not,
Or, if he is, he makes a spot.
- Ogden Nash

Unless, of course, you've named him Spot.
- Melissa Kaplan [Invertebrates]

The python has, and I fib no fibs,
318 pairs of ribs.
In stating this I place reliance
On a seance with one who died for science.
This figure is sworn to and attested;
He counted them while being digested.
- Ogden Nash

Quotes

Komodo dragons sleep headfirst in large burrows. It is a very, very, very bad idea to even think of pulling its tail. - Douglas Adams [General Herpetology]

Contempt for animal life leads to contempt for human life. - Edward Abbey [Pet Trade Issues & Activism]

Magic is just science we don't yet understand. - Isaac Asimov [For Kids]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke [For Kids]

Learning is the evolution of the mind. - Alison Crocker [For Parents & Teachers]

Learning is not compulsory... Neither is survival. - W. Edwards Deming [For Parents & Teachers]

"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children." - Walter Elias Disney [For Parents & Teachers]

The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he'd had for dinner the night before. - F. Scott Fitzgerald [General Herpetology]

In the United States, the retail trade in live reptiles, amphibians, and related products is worth a minimum of two billion dollars annually. - Joseph Franke MS and Teresa Telecky PhD. Reptiles as Pets: An Examination of the Trade in Live Reptiles in the United States. HSUS, 2001. [Pet Trade Issues & Activism]

...we got to get ourselves back to the garden. - Joni Mitchell [Plants}

The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. - Eden Phillpotts [For Kids]

...though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest. - Plutarch [Amphibians]

Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. - Charles Schulz [For Parents & Teachers]

But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I will be unique in all the world. You will become responsible forever for what you have tamed. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery. [Green Iguana]

Assorted Quotes
The following quotes have been used in previous incarnations of my site and in my email signatures though the years...

Alligators have the right idea - they eat their young. - Edward Abbey

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. - Edward Abbey

Nature does nothing uselessly. - Aristotle

In all things of Nature, there is something of the marvelous. - Aristotle

Health can be snatched away at the rate of parts per billion. - Nicholas Ashford

If there is one piece of advice worth having before sitting down to eat with people who like to talk about maggots over dinner it would simply be: Don't eat rice. - Michael Baden & Marion Roach

Nobody ever made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. - Edmund Burke

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. - Samuel Butler

Almost from birth I have been peculiarly tormented by Jeckyll-and-Hyde compulsions both to learn about the natural history of animals and to eat them... - Archie Carr

It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. - Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

Wildlife management is an oxymoron. We should have learned long ago to simply leave the proper natural space, to respectfully withdraw and let wildlife manage wildlife. - David M. Carroll

It is no use saying "we are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. - Winston Churchill

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. - Winston Churchill

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. - Winston Churchill

If you talk the animals, they will talk to you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them. What you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys. - Chief Dan George

The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. - Albert Einstein

People who are wrapped up in themselves make small packages. - Benjamin Franklin

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. - Jane Goodall

Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river. - Cordell Hull

In nature, there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are consequences. - Robert G. Ingersoll

Rachel Carson was an optimist. - Melissa Kaplan

Everybody lives downstream - Melissa Kaplan

There is no disease in the world that is more than 24 hours away. - Melissa Kaplan

When you go to war over religion, you are basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. - Melissa Kaplan

If you don't want a 7 ft sofa, don't get one. If you don't want a 6 ft lizard, don't get an iguana. - Melissa Kaplan

Taming an iguana is just as much about training the human as it is the iguana. - Melissa Kaplan

A mind is like a wound - if it’s too open, it becomes infected. - Roberta Kittelson

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian. - Rabbi Harold Kushner

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward. - Vernon Law

The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the cogs and wheels. - Aldo Leopold

No affectation of peculiarity can conceal a commonplace mind. - W. Somerset Maugham

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions. - Wilson Mizner

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. - John Muir

[God] may well have his reasons but he seems to use a lot of psychotics to carry out his job orders. - Fox Mulder

Those who boast are seldom the great. - Jawarharlal Nehru

In the field of observation, chance favours the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur

To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man. - Alan Paton

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. - Marcel Proust

A deluge of words and a drop of sense. - John Ray

If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito. - Anita Roddick

Vegetarian: an old Indian word meaning "lousy hunter." - Andy Rooney

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. - Theodore Roosevelt

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. - Bertrand Russell

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace. - Albert Schweitzer

"Baby" me and you'll be peeing through a catheter. - Dana Scully

The answers are there. You just have to know where to look. - Dana Scully

While we are postponing, life speeds by. - Seneca

When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him, it's called ferocity. - George Bernard Shaw

A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. - Paul Simon

Some people approach every problem with an open mouth. - Adlai Stevenson

This thing should be out hunting. You can play with it later. - Aeryn Sun

The more information people have, the more they are empowered. - Tina Turner

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain

Life isn't filled with fools - lightning just isn't distributed right. - Mark Twain

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. - Mark Twain

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. - Mark Twain

Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. - Wernher von Braun

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. - H. H. Williams

Planet Bog -- Pools of toxic chemicals bubble under a choking atmosphere of poisonous gases... but aside from that, it's not much like Earth. - Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)

Nothing but a fundamental reordering of our institutions and belief systems will stave off environmental and social devastation from which we will not be able to recover. - Timothy Weiskel

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. - Edith Wharton

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good... luckily, it's not difficult. - Charlotte Whitton

Real intelligence is a creative use of knowledge, not merely an accumulation of facts. - Kenneth Winebrenner

I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. - John Wooden

All empty souls tend to extreme opinion. - William Butler Yeats

A show of envy is an insult to oneself. - Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Silence is the door of consent. - Berber proverb

One is successful when they can lay a firm foundation with bricks thrown at them by others.

Know people for who they are rather than for what they are.

Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing as division.

Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Man is preceded by a forest and followed by a desert.

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you (or the toad) the rest of the day.

I don't do drugs 'cause I find I get the same effect just by standing up really fast.

The pain's not too bad - once I black out.

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