For something that’s “just a comic”, Calvin and Hobbes contains an amazing amount of highly quotable wisdom and (semi-)philosophy. Some of these quotes have made into my daily view on life. Examples:
“Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse.” Gloomy, I know, but highly appropriate sometimes.
“A good compromise leaves everybody mad.”
“Provoking a reaction is not the same as saying something significant.”
“Cooking must be hard if you antropomorphise your vegetables.” Calvin says this after seeing his mom crying because she’s cutting up an onion. I use it to mean that if you think too hard about it, you can find moral objections to even the most trivial things.
There are more, of course. So what’s your favourite pearl of wisdom from the mouths of our favourite little boy-tiger combo? Or do you extract your philosophy from another comic?
hey… i get a lot of wisdom (actually perspective would be a better word) from C&H too… think my favourite ones are those where is dad is explaining stuff to him… 2 really stand out… one where dad i trying to explain colour vs. B&W and another where he explains that the sun sets everyday in the west (at arizona, near falstaff)… simply sublime !!
Calvin standing at the bus-stop, scowl on his face and cloud over his head.
Suzie arrives, says something like “What’s up?”
Calvin cuts her dead with a nasty remark.
“Fine”, says Suzie, now scowling and with her own cloud.
The final pic has Calvin grinning and scowling at the same time, and thinking…
“Nothing improves a bad mood like spreading it around”
“I used to make original snowmen, but it was time-consuming, hard work, so I said, heck, this is crazy! Now I crank out crude imitations of what’s already popular! It takes no time or thought, and most people don’t care about the difference anyway!”
It’s “Don’t knock my smock or I’ll clean your clock!” I used to love this line when I was much younger, because I didn’t know that ‘knock’ meant ‘insult.’ I tried to picture Hobbes ‘knocking’ an item that was not as sturdy as a wall, but still producing a satisfying “knock” sound, and it sent me into gales of laughter. I was a weird kid.
