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

Volume 0717


LOST WORDS OF ERB Pt. V

Edgar Rice Burroughs 1929	ERB and bride, wearing leis, 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)

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