Walt Kelly Quotes

Walt Kelly offers a reflective, witty take on life, time, and human nature.

63 quotes

1. Looking back on things, the view always improves.

2. We have met the enemy and he is us.

3. Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.

4. Eventually every man gotta face the problem of tryin' to figger if it's worthwhile to prove that he is himself.

5. The best break anybody ever gets is in bein' alive in the first place. An' you don't unnerstan' what a perfect deal it is until you realizes that you ain't gone be stuck with it forever, either.

6. Thar's only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we're the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it's a mighty sobering thought.

7. (Albert:) 'I'd give them a piece of my mind if I could find it! I mean, them!' (Porky Pine, to Pogo:) 'Y'know, ol' Albert leads a life of noisy desperation.'

8. Ever since I heard you is got a million dollars I notice you is fraught with perspicacity.

9. Foo, a beautiful gal wastes her time gracin' up this swamp.

10. I'll tell you, son, the minority got us out-numbered!

11. So we got fifty percent. Babe Ruth didn't do no better. - Did you mean hittin' it... or throwin' it?

12. Some is more equal than others, as is well known.

13. The natural born reason we didn't git no yew-ranium when we crosses the li'l yew tree and the gee-ranium is on account of cause we didn't have no geiger counter.

14. Halp! My powerful brain is blowed itself up!

15. Y'see, when you start to lick a national problem you have to go after the fundamentables. You want to cut down air pollution? Cut down the original source... Breathin! ~ Churchy to Howland

16. Deck us all with Boston Charlie Walla Walla, Wash, and Kalamazoo! Nora's freezin' on the trolley, Swaller dollar cauliflower Alleygaroo! Don't we know archaic barrel, Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. Trolley Molly don't love Harold, Boola Boola Pensacoola Hullabaloo!

17. Reciprovocation is the spites of life.

18. Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.

19. I carry the hose.

20. Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.

21. Given three strikes, the truth will out.

22. God is not dead - he is merely unemployed...

23. Having lost sight of our objectives, we redoubled our efforts.

24. I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

25. If you wants to get elected president, you've got to think up some memorable homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it, even if they don't know what it means.

26. In like a dimwit, out like a light.

27. Knowledge and meaning can be too earnestly sought after. for the boy who, blind or helpless, can lie around and find moonlight and dancing girls going about their business in the secrecy of his mind alone.

28. Learn to laugh at your troubles and you'll never run out of things to laugh at.

29. Look alive. Here comes a buzzard. ~ Miz Beaver

30. My bug brain is ever whirrin.

31. Pogo is 'the reasonably patient, soft-hearted, naive, friendly little person we all think we are'

32. The Now is alive with a curious life which defies the descriptive powers of such divers as swim ahead of the swine in search of pearls.

33. We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.

34. Variant: We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunity.

35. We gotta make democracy safe for the world.

36. What's good about March? Well, for one thing, it keeps February and April apart.

37. Women aren't as mere as they used to be.

38. If I could only write, I'd write a nasty letter to the mayor, if he could only read.

39. A parade is the worst form of transportation known to man.

40. When we become negative and ungrateful, it is important to remember... We have met the enemy; and he is us.

41. A lump in the throat is worth two on the head.

42. Don't believe something just because you didn't read it in the papers. Wait until you haven't seen it on television.

43. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

44. Now is the time for all good men to come to.

45. There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our whole lives, win, lose, or draw.

46. Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.

47. It is not good enough for things to be planned - they still have to be done; for the intention to become a reality, energy has to be launched into operation.

48. You got to be yourself, you got to discard all the bull and get YOU across ... and get what you have to say across.

49. Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.

50. Too soon we breast the tape and too late we realize the fun lay in the running. We deny that the end justifies the means without ever stopping to consider that for practical purposes the End and the Means are one and the same thing. If there is to be any satisfaction in life it must come in transit, for who can tell when he will be struck down in mid-method?

51. Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog. Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.

52. Man tries to swallow meaning whole as a dog would eat his dinner.

53. Traces of nobility, gentleness, and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly…

54. Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future.

55. You want to cut down air pollution? Cut down the original source... Breathin'!

56. Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ...

57. Some is more equal than others, as is well known. It ain't that your majority is outnumbered, you're just out-surrounded.

58. “Scuse me—gotta hurry home—left the chillun on the stove.”

59. “Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohow permanent.”

60. “Albert made of solid alligator—he heavy.”

61. “If you can't win, don't join them; learn how to lose.”

62. “Yowpee! I pulls my brandin' irons an' comes out a-bitin' the dust—a reg'lar Hoopalong Cassowary!”

63. “In this dark, when we all talk at once, some of us must learn to whistle.”