The Essence of "Great" Philosophers

Epicurus: "Find a tranquill farm and hang out with true friends. The gods are partying zillions of miles away... and barley cakes are delicious."

Socrates: "I don't know anything, but I don't need to because my literary adversaries couldn't out-debate George W. Bush after a gallon of vodka."

Buddha: "Avoid violence and all extremes. Don't drink, remember to brush your teeth and meditate. And... (breaks the cycle of karma and vanishes into non-being... or was it a nursing home?)"

Plato: "Listen to Socrates, and don't associate with poets or loose women."

Aristotle: "I know everything, and unlike C-3PO, I have no scruples about impersonating a God."

Confucius: "The important things are to be orderly, civilized, ethical, and to always obey your big brother." (It's amazing it took Communist China so long to warm up to him.)

Aquinas: "The feasts and wine the serfs provide me are very good, and since there is good in the universe, there must be an ultimate goodness: God. There are also bunny rabbits in the world, which are furry and friendly. So there must also be a ultimately furry and friendly bunny rabbit God." (This last part of his book was excluded for unknown reasons.)

Descartes: "Be highly skeptical about everything, except whatever pops into your head, an all-powerful Jehova, and mathematics."

Nietzche: "The Christian God is dead: so now we can all be free from servile morality, and fight and rape and plunder and kill Jews. Hey, why doesn't everybody like me???"

Newton: "Here's how to build a factory or an air-plane. Hm... I wonder if this mercury will turn my liver to gold. I like gold."

Marx: "We must force everybody into cities, where they'll work in horrible factories, and then revolt and share all possessions and eat bread and honey... and that's completely scientific(!!BUTLER, if you forget my skim-milk frapuccino one more time...!!)"

John Stuart Mill: "The only important thing is to work for the most good for the statistical majority of humanity. Thus, I recommend we start by surrendering the British Empire to the Chinese and the Indians... and surrender Buckingham Palace to their representatives the cows. Do you know any cows I might feed milk to with my silver spoons?"

Kant: "I'm very smart, and can tell you some profound truths. But I saw what you did to Voltaire and Gallileo, so I'm going to put it all in a weird labrynthian code made up of my own terms. Then I'm going to live quietly in my nice German town and occasionally indulge in pipe-smoking and sausage."

Timothy Leary: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." (We still don't know what it means, but he has a p.h.d. and makes some beautiful Kool-Aid)

Devo: "The meaning of life is: you must whip it!!" (hey, why not?)