"Hamilcar also told Hannibal about elephants and how you must always have plenty of these animals to scare the enemy. He attributed much of his own success to elephants and believed they would have won the First Punic War for him if things hadn't gone slightly haywire; for the war had turned into a naval affair. But even when the fighting was on land, the Romans did not scare nearly so well as expected. The Romans had learned about elephants while fighting Pyrrhus, whose elephants defeated him in 275 B.C., and even before that, in Alexander's time, King Porus had been undone by his own elephants. Thus, if history had taught any one thing up to that time, it was never to use elephants in war."

“Tragabigzanda was a rather large girl. Later on, Captain Smith named a portion of Massachusetts after her.”

“They all won lasting renown by constantly accusing one another of peculation and fraud and calling names at election time.”

“Other kings let their ministers make their mistakes for them, but Louis insisted on making the important mistakes personally.”

“Other foolish birds include the Semipalmated Plover, the Marbled Godwit, the Carolina Mosshead, the Tasmanian Googlenose and the Fool Hen or Franklin Grouse of the Rockies.”

“I think you are absolutely right about everything, except I think humor springs from rage, hay fever, overdue rent and miscellaneous hell.”

“Although this structure failed as a tomb, it is one of the wonders of the world even today because it is the largest thing ever built for the wrong reason.”