If you read my entry about Hypatia, and if you didn’t you should be bitch slapped, then you’ve already experienced a sample of Elbert Hubbard.  This is my new pretend boyfriend of the week, although it’s unfortunate that he’s long since been dead, but then again perhaps dead boyfriends are the best.

Note: Don’t wig out; this is in no way a relation L. Ron Hubbard.  I know, I was scared too, but then it dawned on me that Scientology has nothing to do about the truth.

Elbert Hubbard and his wife perished on the Lusitania, but before this he published more than seven million words and founded the Roycroft Press who are still around to this day.  He had written many an essay and short stories but was having great difficulty in getting them published.  So he said, “Fuck you very much,” and started his own.

I’ll have to raid Amazon for some of his compositions, but for now here are some quotes to tide you over.

A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

A pessimist? That's a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all.

Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

It's pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

Live truth instead of professing it.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than we do for chewing gum.

There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you'll make one.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

Fuck you.

The absolutely convoluted ideas of grammar according to Microsoft boggle the mind.  I swear this program was devised by a busload of illegal immigrants dodging the border police.

I miss that one guy.  No, not him – the other guy.  

I fell in love once with a guy who was a . . . musician. *hanging my head in shame*  I know I know, but do try to remember that I make the poorest of choices.  That was more than eight years ago and I haven’t talked to him in ages, and despite it all, I still miss him.  Isn’t that funny?

When I was in ninth grade I was placed in a behavior disorder class simply because it was the only possible way to get me to school.  Fourteen years old and 300 pounds, would you wanna go to class?  But the BD class was great, there were perhaps four students in there tops.  I had the delightful pleasure of sharing this tiny insignificant class with one of the most fun guys ever.  *fanning self* Not only that but he was smart to boot.  What the hell was he doing stuck in that class?  I dunno, why the hell was I there?

I’ll never forget the day he introduced me to Monty Python.  He absolutely could not believe I’d never heard of the infamous Parrot Sketch.  It was one those days where there was absolutely nothing to be done; boredom would’ve engulfed us all if Kevin hadn’t come to our rescue.  He proceeded to perform the entire script from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail.  It was spectacular; he could mimic an English accent like no other.  To this day even the movie itself has never made me laugh so hard than his own interpretation.

He later dropped out of high school and virtually vanished off the Earth.  The last I heard he was working onna shark boat in the Gulf of Mexico, but even that was nearly nine years ago. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he was dead now.

But what a way to gurl’s heart eh?

Hypatia was a Greek mathematician and philosopher who lived during the mid fourth through the early fifth century.  This was ...   more »