The First and Only Weekly Online Fanzine Devoted to the Life and Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs |
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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)
