![]() First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs Since 1996 ~ Over 10,000 Webpages and Webzines in Archive |
![]() |
![]() |
1929 |
leaning over ship's rail as they arrive in Hawaii - 1935 |
"I want to go along with Ray Bradbury's views on the importance of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was Burroughs who turned me on, and I think he is a much underrated writer. The man who can create Tarzan, the best-known character in the whole fiction, should not be taken too lightly!"(Arthur C. Clarke in Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds, 1999)
ERB At Harvard School in Chicago
When "Tarzan" Went to Harvard
By Edgar Rice Burroughs
From the Hyde Park Historical Society newsletter
-- Spring 2001
The article originally appeared in the Harvard Review, Anniversary
Issue, 1940
Because I attended Harvard School sometime between the Pliocene and Pleistocene eras, Miss Schobinger has suggested that I write a little article for the School Annual and call it Before the Birth of Tarzan.... It was in 1888 that I entered the old Harvard School at 21st Street and Indiana Avenue, where my brother, Coleman, had been a student for a year. I was never a student -- I just went to school there.I lived over on the West Side where everybody made his money in those days and then moved to the South Side to show off. I kept my pony in a livery stable on Madison Street west of Robey Street... and in good weather I rode to school. In inclement weather, I took the Madison Street horse-cars to Wabash, a cable-car to 18th Street, and another horse-car to school. Sometimes, returning from school, I used to run down Madison Street from State Street to Lincoln Street, a matter of some three miles, to see how many horse-cars I could beat in that direction. It tires me all out even to think of it now. I must have been long on energy, if a trifle short on brains.
I cannot recall much about my classmates. Mancel Clark, Bennie Marshall, and I came over to Harvard together from Miss Coolie's Maplehurst School for Girls on the West Side -- and were we glad to escape that blot on our escutcheons! There had been a diphtheria epidemic in the public schools the previous year, and our fond parents had prevailed upon Miss Coolie to take us in...
Bennie Marshall and I used to sneak down to the breakwater and smoke cubeb cigarettes and feel real devilish. I imagine we even chewed gum too. He became a very famous Chicago architect (with Charles Eli Fox, he designed the Drake Hotel). I can see him now sitting at his desk drawing pictures and chewing his tongue when he should have been studying.
At Harvard School I studied Greek and Latin because someone believed that they should be taught before English grammar was taken up; then I went to Andover and studied Greek and Latin all over again. So, having never studied English, I conceived the brilliant idea of taking up writing as my profession. Perhaps, had I studied English grammar, I would have known better, but then there would have been no Tarzan... There should be a moral to this. Perhaps it is that one should not smoke cubeb cigarettes.
A man must live, he can't be too particular
about his job when he hasn't very much money.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
A brave man could not be other than the soul
of honor.
-- ERB / The Mucker (1914)
A lifetime of suffering does not incline one
to seek further trouble.
-- ERB / The Moon Men (1925)
Divided authority is no authority.
-- ERB / Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)
Beer never was intended as an eye wash.
-- ERB / Return of the Mucker (1916)
All men are susceptible to flattery, and oftentimes
the more ignorant they are, the more susceptible.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
Human nature is alike everywhere, we think
that we want to forget the tragedies of life, but we do not. If they
momentarily pass us by and leave us in peace,
we must conjure them again, either in our thoughts or through
some such medium.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
I am convinced that what are commonly known
as the breaks, good or bad, have fully as much to do with one's
success or failure as ability.
-- ERB / How I wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)
I cannot show respect when I do not feel respect.
I respect only those who command my respect.
-- ERB / Skeleton Men of Jupiter (1943)
Fully ninety per cent of the people in the
world are not equipped with anything wherewith to think intelligently.
-- ERB / Entertainment is Fiction's Purpose
(1930)
Few men are really good judges of character,
and it is therefore very seldom that one of us is open to
self-congratulation on this score.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
Fiction characters are just as real to most
of us as are these celebrities of today or the past; d'Artagnan is as
much flesh and blood as Napoleon. Perhaps
the influence of d'Artagnan has had a finer influence upon the
forming of character than has that of the
great Corsican.
-- ERB / The Tarzan Theme (1932)
Even the best of men can't fight antagonists
that are invisible.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
If I had followed my better judgment always,
my life would have been a very dull one.
-- ERB / Llana of Gathol (1941)
Ignorance and stupidity occasionally reveal
advantages that raise them to the dignity of virtues.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
I should have liked to have put my hands on
the man who said that poverty is an honorable estate. It is an
indication of inefficiency and nothing more.
There is nothing honorable or fine about it. To be poor is quite bad
enough. But to be poor and without hope -
well, the only way to understand it is to be it.
-- ERB / How I wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)
I've been searching for 'there' for many years;
but for some reason I can never get away from 'here'. About two
weeks of any place on earth and that place
is just plain 'here' to me, and I'm longing once again for 'there'
-- ERB / Return of the Mucker (1916)
I would not look to any fiction writer, living
or dead, for guidance on any subject.
-- ERB / Entertainment is Fiction's Purpose
(1930)
I do not think that I am ever overconfident.
I am merely wholly confident, and I maintain that there is all the
difference in the world there.
-- ERB / Llana of Gathol (1941)
I have been successful probably because I have
always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have
merely tried to tell an interesting story
entertainingly.
-- ERB
It is the character that makes the man, not
the clay which is its adobe.
-- ERB / Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)
It occurred to me that I should probably feel
irritable if my head had been lopped off.
-- ERB / Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)
It requires the highest courage to do that
which fills one with fear
-- ERB / The Moon Maid (1923)
It is remarkable how quickly friendships are
formed in the midst of a common jeopardy.
-- ERB / Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)
It is the brave man who is afraid after the
danger is past.
-- ERB / The Moon Maid (1923)
Inherent chivalry is as difficult to suppress
or uproot as is inherent viciousness.
-- ERB / The Mucker (1914)
Moping seems to be the natural state of all
lovers.
-- ERB / Llana of Gathol (1941)
Most everybody was decent if you went at 'em
right.
-- ERB / Return of the Mucker (1916)
Love plays strange tricks upon one's mental
processes.
-- ERB / Skeleton Men of Jupiter (1943)
It's not always either fair or safe to judge
strangers entirely by appearances.
-- ERB / The Mucker (1914)
It were well to have one's retreat assured
at the earliest possible moment.
-- ERB / Return of the Mucker (1916)
Often wild beasts are less cruel than men.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
No matter how instinctively gregarious one
may be there are times when one longs for solitude.
-- ERB / Llana of Gathol (1941)
The ignorant and stupid are seldom sufficiently
imaginative to be intelligently curious.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
The instinct of self-preservation will work
wonders even with a frail and delicate woman.
-- ERB / The Mucker (1914)
The man who performs heroic acts without fear
is less brave than he who overcomes his cowardice.
-- ERB / The Moon Maid (1923)
The eye-light of love and lust are twin lights
between which it takes much worldly wisdom to differentiate.
-- ERB / The Mucker (1914)
There is nothing more discouraging than to
discover that your most effective blows do not feeze your
opponent.
-- ERB / The Mucker (1914)
There is nothing more glorious than freedom.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
There is enough trouble in the world without
burdening people with any that does not directly threaten them.
-- ERB / The Moon Men (1925)
The spirit of man can endure only so much and
when it is broken only a miracle can mend it.
-- ERB / The Moon Men (1925)
Never fight anyone, unless you outnumber them
ten to one. It would not be good strategy.
-- ERB / Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)
We're all looking for amusement. If a guy has
no money to buy it with, he has to manufacture it.
-- ERB / Return of the Mucker (1916)
Under the moonlight one's eyes sometimes play
strange tricks on one.
-- ERB / Llana of Gathol (1941)
Wars are not won by defensive methods.
-- ERB / Skeleton Men of Jupiter (1943)
Those who boast the loudest usually have the
least to boast about.
-- ERB / Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)
With a disloyal crew anything may happen except
success.
-- ERB / Llana of Gathol (1941)
When a thing has to be done the best plan is
to get at it, stick to it, and get it over with as soon as possible.
-- ERB / Llana of Gathol (1941)
What followed... you may read in your history
books - probably greatly garbled, as is all history.
-- ERB / I Am a Barbarian (1941)
When you cannot see, it is difficult to tell
how high you are jumping.
-- ERB / Swords of Mars (1934)
You must admit that it might be confusing to
have one brain and two bodies.
-- ERB / Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)
A great brain is not without its uses.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
A man's way with woman is in inverse ration
to his prowess among men.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
A warrior may change his metal, but not his
heart.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
Anger is the most futile attribute of the sentimentalist.
-- ERB / (6) The Master Mind of Mars (1927)
As man may eat the flesh of beasts, so may
gods eat the flesh of man.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
Could it be that there were other things more
desirable than cold logic and undefiled brain power?
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Death was merely a state of mind.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
Developement of the brain should not be the
total of human endeavour. The richest and happiest peoples will
be those who attain closest to well-balanced
perfection of both mind and body.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
From the beginning of time... it has been the
prerogative of woman to change her mind.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
Earth men produce remarkable results when pitted
against the lesser gravity and air pressure of Mars.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
Etherealists admit that mind itself must have
substance in order to transmit to imaginings the appearance of
substance.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
Even though we die at their hands we can afford
them pity, since we are greater than they.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
Everyone wants his dead to look as they did
at their best in life.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Few western wonders are more inspiring than
the beauties of an Arizona moonlight landscape.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
First thoughts are often inspirations, wile
sober afterthought may lead to failure.
-- ERB / (7) A Fighting Man of Mars (1930)
Food is a necessity to creatures having actual
existence.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
If your vocation be shoeing horses, or painting
pictures, and you can do one or the other better than your
fellows, then you are a fool if you are not
proud of your ability.
-- ERB / (3) Warlords of Mars (1914)
I shall do well to listen to the voice of instinct.
-- ERB / (3) Warlords of Mars (1914)
Strange instinct might be more dependable than
faulty human judgment.
-- ERB / (3) Warlords of Mars (1914)
History reveals no defence for that which we
know existed only in the ignorant and superstitious minds of the
most primitive people of the past.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Human nature is much the same everywhere, whether
skins be black or white, red or yellow or brown, upon
Earth or upon Mars.
-- ERB / (6) The Master Mind of Mars (1927)
I am a better warrior for the reason that I
am a kind master.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
I am a fighting man, not a scientist.
-- ERB / (3) Warlords of Mars (1914)
Life is sweet and there is always hope.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Mad minds are sometimes fickle.
-- ERB / (7) A Fighting Man of Mars (1930)
It is strange how new and unexpected conditions
bring out unguessed ability to meet them.
-- ERB / (3) Warlords of Mars (1914)
It is the better part of wisdom that we bow
to our fate with as good grace as possible.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
It is the contention of all us realist that
all etherealists are but figments of the imagination.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
It is always well to assume every man and nation
your enemy until you have learned the contrary.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
It is difficult to aim anything but imprecations
accurately by moonlight.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
It is only your brain that make you superior,
but your brain is bound by the limitation of your body.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
People who knew too little and people who knew
to much were equally a bore.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Perhaps the greatest suffering that a victim
must endure lies in the anticipation of what awaits them.
-- ERB / (7) A Fighting Man of Mars (1930)
One cannot desert a friend.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
One man alone may succeed where more would
invite disaster.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
Only long ages of refinement and culture can
accomplish their release from the bondage of ignorance.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Nature must have contrasts; she must have shadows
as well as high lights; sorrow with happiness; both wrong
and right; and sin as well as virtue.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
No man likes to do things that he does not
know how to do well. Or that some other can do better than he.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Mind is all, though we may differ in the interpretation
of its various manifestations.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
The one on whom all responsibility rests is
apt to endure the most.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
The eyes are oftentimes more eloquent than
the lips.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
The instinct of self-preservation is strong
even when one knows that death lies just ahead.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
The etherrealists maintain that there is no
such thing as matter - that all is mind. They say that none of us exists,
except in the imagination of his fellows,
other than intangible, invisible mentality.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
Suspicion sees everything through distorted
lenses.
-- ERB / (7) A Fighting Man of Mars (1930)
The average human mind will not believe what
it cannot grasp.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
So Strong is the power of superstition that
even though we know that we have been reverencing a sham, yet still
we hesitate to admit the validity of our new-found
convictions.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
To the ignorant all things which they cannot
understand are mysterious.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
War never brought peace - it but brings more
and greater wars.
-- ERB / (6) The Master Mind of Mars (1927)
We cannot fight empty air, neither, on the
other hand, can empty air fight us.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
There is neither pleasure nor thrill nor reward
of any sort to be gained by dying in bed of a loathsome disease.
-- ERB / (6) The Master Mind of Mars (1927)
There is no pleasure in intercourse with the
feeble intellects.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
There are occasions in life when you become
impressed by the evidence of the existence of an extraneous
power which guides your acts.
-- ERB / (7) A Fighting Man of Mars (1930)
There be finer and nobler things than perfect
mentality.
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
There is naught that we can do but take things
as they come.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
The weakling and the saphead have often great
ability to charm the fair sex.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
While we live we are still more the arbiters
of our own fate.
-- ERB / (2) The Gods of Mars (1913)
Why pit your puny blade against their mighty
ones when there should lie in your great brain the means to
outwit them?
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Why should your ears refuse to hear what your
eyes but just now did not refuse to see?
-- ERB / (5) The Chessmen of Mars (1922)
Why, oh, why will you not learn to live in
amity with your fellows, must you ever go on down the ages to your
final extinction but little above the plane
of the dumb brute.
-- ERB / (1) A Princess of Mars (1912)
Were it not for constant warring of one form
of life upon another, and even upon itself, the planets would be so
overrun with life that it would smother itself
out.
-- ERB / (6) The Master Mind of Mars (1927)
What never has been cannot be imagined.
-- ERB / (4) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)
The more civilized people become, the more
deadly are the inventions with which they kill one another.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Men of the Bronze
Age (1942)
Wild beasts have far more dignity than man.
When people say in disgust that a person acts like a beast, they
really mean that he acts like a man.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Savage Pellucidar
(1963)
A person who asks no questions can ussually
keep his own counsel.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Land of Terror (1944)
It is my belief that the first man was a freak
of nature.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Pellucidar (1915)
It is always a foolish thing to contemplate
suicide; for no matter how dark the future may appear today,
tomorrow may hold for us that which will alter
our whole life in an instant, revealing to us nothing but sunshine
and happiness.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Pellucidar (1915)
An editor would edit the word of God.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Beyond the Farthest
Star (1941)
Even a congenital idiot could run for the Presidency
of the United States of America.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Beyond the Farthest
Star (1941)
The paths of glory sometimes lead but to the
grave.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Tangor Returns (1964)
I should much rather be alive and unhappy than
dead and unable to know that I was unhappy.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Tanar of Pellucidar
(1929)
It is not always best to follow the line of
least resistance.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / At the Earth's Core
(1914)
Man alone of all creatures brings change and
dissention and strife wheresoever he first sets foot.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs / Tarzan at the Earth's
Core (1930)
Golly! If the girls back home could see me
now.
-- Bo Derek / Movie: Tarzan the Ape Man
Even theories must have foundations.
-- ERB / Pirates of Venus (1934)
Subconscious minds are no less fallible than
the objective mind.
-- ERB / Pirates of Venus (1934)
How insignificant is man’s greatest achievement
besides the least of Nature’s works.
-- ERB / The Monster Men (1913)
Insanity is not necessarily hereditary.
-- ERB / The Lost Continent (1915)
It undoubtedly took more courage to do a thing
in the face of fear than to do it if fear were absent.
-- ERB / The Oakdale Affair (1918)
I have a well-developed sense of humor -- when
the joke is not on me.
-- ERB / The People That Time Forgot (1918)
There is a certain amount of fool in every
man.
-- ERB / The People That Time Forgot (1918)
Clothes, to a man accustomed to wearing clothes,
impart a certain self-confidence; lack of them induces panic.
-- ERB / The People That Time Forgot (1918)
A thing’s got to have brains before a man could
hate it.
-- ERB / The Deputy Sheriff of Commanche County
(1940)
|
|
|
|
Tribute Quotes from Others
http://www.erbzine.com/mag28/2875.html
The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs
BILL
HILLMAN
Visit
our thousands of other sites at:
BILL
and SUE-ON HILLMAN ECLECTIC STUDIO
ERB
Text, ERB Images and Tarzan® are ©Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.-
All Rights Reserved.
All
Original Work ©1996-2002/2012 by Bill Hillman and/or Contributing
Authors/Owners
No
part of this web site may be reproduced without permission from the respective
owners.