Some April Fool's Day Fun by Linda Lorenzo
by Linda Living Joy Lorenzo on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 5:00pm
On Fools and Folly !
Happy April Fool's Day....Enjoy the Fun
A HISTORY OF APRIL FOOLS DAY
Many of the ancient cultures such as Romans and Hindus and the medieval Europeans used to celebrate New Year's Day on sometime near the vernal equinox that could range from March 20th to April 5th. In the Julian calendar, April 1st was designated as the New Year's Day and was so celebrated till 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the adoption of the new Gregorian Calendar, which specified January 1st as the New Year's Day. However, due to slow communications and resistance of people to change their traditions, many people continued to celebrate New Year's Day as before on 1st of April. Scottish only adopted the new calendar in 1660, Germans, Danish and Norwegians in 1700 and English in 1752.
Many French resisted the change and neoiites dubbed them as fools and played pranks on them. They started sending them on 'fool's errands', sent them the fake invitations for parties and tricked them into believing something false. The victims were called 'Poisson d'Avril' or 'April Fish' as the naïve fish gets caught easily and children would often tag of a fish's picture on someone's back. Thus, April Fool's Day originated and was popularly celebrated in England and in the American colonies. It evolved and was caught on quickly throughout the world to trick each other and have fun. Even today, people play pranks on each other on this day in the memory of those tradition-obsessed 'fools'.
Perhaps the best illustration of the April Fool's Pranks of the 19th century is the Thomas Nast's illustration, originally published in the April 2, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly. It highlights the various pranks that were popularly played at the time with its caption as 'All Fool's Day'. Some of the pranks shown here include women visiting an older man wearing beards and moustaches, Civil War Soldiers tricking each other such as a soldier barring the view by holding his hand on in front of the binoculars of a friend and a sailor doing the same by holding his hat over the telescope of a friend. The other tricks include a young boy tying a string on the dress of a little girl while a schoolteacher is shown with the sign of 'Old Fool' on his back.
TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS ON APRIL FOOL'S DAY
On 'All Fools' Day' or 'April Fools' Day', people play practical jokes and pranks on each other, crack jokes on the expense of victims and gift each other gag gifts and then when the victims are taken in by surprise, all the witnesses shout 'April Fool' at once. The innocent pranks such as prompting somebody that their shoelaces are undone or that they have something on their faces are quite common. Children love to use the opportunity to prank their classmates and even their schoolteachers.
At some places, one is only allowed to play jokes until 12 noon for the jokes played after that time are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator. Similarly, the victim is advised to endure the tricks with a smile on their face, exhibiting tolerance or amusement or they may suffer bad luck, It is said that those fooled by a pretty girl can expect marriage or at least friendship with her. Men are advised not to marry on this day or their wives will rule them forever. Children born on 1st of April are considered lucky generally, except in gambling where they will fare badly.
At some places, afternoon on 1st of April is called as 'Leggin'-down-day' and the people try to trip up any unsuspecting victim. Brish media, normally considered serious and sober, give in to the excitement and tomfoolery of the day and consider hoaxes on this day as a fair game. Read BBC hoaxes to know more about them. With Internet to assist them, playing pranks had become a lot easier, fun and far reaching. April Fool's Day is one of the funniest and most popular pastimes of the day.
PRACTICAL JOKES AND TRICKS
April Fool's Day is the opportunity to trick your friends or loved ones and even strangers and play practical jokes on them. Here are some out of the world ideas for you.
Rearrange somebody's drawers or file cabinets in a different order and see them baffled.
Hard boil an egg and place it in the regular egg carton the night before. In the morning, ask someone to help you make breakfast and beat the egg to make omelets. Hand them the hard-boiled egg and watch them trying to crack it!
On the other hand, you may just glue the eggs to the carton and ask someone to hand them to you in the morning. As the victims struggle to take the eggs out of the carton, they break.
There are lots of fantastic tricks for heavy sleepers. Some of the popular ones are:
Draw funny eyebrows and moustache on their faces while they are asleep.
o Place some whipped cream in their hands and tickle their nose with a feather.
o Placing someone's hand while they are asleep in a bowl of cold water is a sure way to make them wet their beds.
Go to office early by half an hour on April 1 and tape down the ball at the bottom of everybody's mouse. See everybody surprised to find out that nobody's mouse is working. Works only on scroll mouse.
This one is to play Dr Dolittle. Tape a little walky-talky on your pet or hide it somewhere near where it is laying. Walk off to a safe distance where you can keep yourself hidden from others with the other piece. As soon as another family member tries to pick up or pat on the back of your pet, say in a gruff voice, "I hate you doing this to me." See them jump with fright and shock.
Late at night, fill the hair-dryer with baby powder. Catch the expression of someone who has just washed his or her hair and turned it white by using the hair dryer.
This can be done in class, office or home. Ask your friends, colleagues and siblings to perform particular actions together at the same pre-planned time like dropping their pencils at the same time, to tie shoelaces, to reboot their computers, to drink water or any such innocent actions. These synchronized actions are sure to surprise anybody who will wonder about what is happening.
Good for teachers. Tell your students that you are just going to note the scores that they have got on their tests or exams and will hand out to them after an hour. Go to the room and them keep running out looking like very scared and tell them that the principal has just spilled coffee or ink on the test/examination papers and they will have to take them again. Note their reactions and exclamations. You can bet that the dullest of all students will loudly claim that they had done their best this time and it is not fair to them. Then you can tell them how much they have really scored.
SILLY RULES AND DECISIONS
Here are some weird and illogical rules and regulations and decisions imposed on the people in various regions. Thankfully, they were just April Fool hoaxes or they would have had drastic effects and might have resulted in rebellions, revolutions and mass movements to dethrone such stupid and eccentric authority.
In 1959, the Kokomo Tribune of Indiana announced that to cut the costs, the city police would close each night from 6 pm to 6 am and one can leave their messages on an answering machine, which will be screened by an officer in the morning. It will also lessen the pressure of work as many of the calls would be old by that time and there would be no need to answer them. A spokesman for the police commented that in the case there is an emergency call in the night, they can go check the hospitals and the coroner in the morning and know if anything has happened or not!
In 1987, a Los Angeles disc jockey that Los Angeles Highway System would be closed for an entire month for repairs from April 8. The citizens were highly alarmed by the startling news for they could not avoid the use of the highway to navigate through the city and immediately the radio station and the California Highway Patrol were flooded with thousands of frantic calls. The intense public response stunned even the station, not to mention that the California Department of Transportation didn't find it 'very funny.'
In 1991, the London Times announced the cabinet's approval of the plan of Department of Transport to alleviate overcrowding on the M25, the circular highway surrounding London by making the traffic on both carriageways travel in the same direction. Thus, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the traffic would travel clockwise while on Tuesdays and Thursdays it would travel anti-clockwise. On weekends, traffic can go on as usual.
Many people voiced their protest. A spokesman for Labor Transport warned that many people have 'trouble telling their left from their right.' A resident of Swanley, Kent said that the scheme was impractical because the villagers using the motorway to go for shopping to Orpington, would have to drive just for two miles on some days and 117 miles on others. Well, it was just a joke.
In 1993, the China Youth Daily, the official state newspaper of China had a government's decision as its first lead on the front page, where Ph.D. holders were exempted from the one child limit imposed by state to control population explosion. The story had a disclaimer in the end identifying it as a joke. Yet, Hong Kong's New Evening News and Agence France-Presse (an international news agency) were taken in and reported it as a fact.
Intellectuals of the country thought the idea to be prompted by the Singaporeans who encouraged their intellectuals to marry and have children to ensure better crop of citizens for the next generation. The Chinese government declared such hoaxes and April Fool's Day as a hazardous tradition of the West while the Guangming Daily, Beijing's main newspaper read mostly by the intellectuals, published an editorial stating April Fool's Day to be a Liar's Day and having bad influence.
In the same year, Westdeutsche Rundfunk, a German radio station, made an official announcement about a new city regulation for the citizens of Cologne where the joggers going through the park could not go faster than six mph to avoid disturbing the squirrels in the middle of their mating season.
The physicist Mark Boslough's article published in April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter state that the Alabama state legislature had passed a bill and voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi. It was to be put to the Biblical value of '3.0' instead of the actual value '3.14159'. The article reached the world over through the Internet and soon the Alabama legislature was stormed with calls protesting such an illogical move. The original article was actually a parody on the legislative attempts to confine the teaching of evolution.
In 1999, the Savings Bank of Rockville placed an ad in the Connecticut Journal-Inquirer on 31st March to announce that they would charge their customers $5 fee for the help of a live teller to ensure enhanced 'professional, caring and superior customer service.' Though, it was a joke, customers were highly agitated by it and it was reported that one woman even closed her account with the bank because of it. The bank ran a second ad revealing the first one to be just a joke with the comment of bank manager that it had actually committed the bank 'to not charging such fees.'
APRIL FOOL'S POEMS AND QUOTES
The first of April, some do say
Is set apart for All Fool's Day;
But why the people call it so
Nor I, nor they themselves, do know,
But on this day are people sent
On purpose for pure merriment.
~ -Poor Robin's Almanac (1790)
Small April sobbed, I'm going to cry
Please give me a cloud to wipe my eye;
Then April Fool, she laughed instead
And smiled a rainbow overhead.
~ Anonymous
The maple syrup's full of ants.
A mouse is creeping on the shelf.
Is that a spider on your back?
I ate the whole pie by myself.
The kitchen sink just overflowed.
A flash flood washed away the school.
I threw your blanket in the trash.
I never lie----I---
APRIL FOOL!
- Myra Cohn Livingston
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
- Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC)
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
- Colette (1873 - 1954), in New York World-Telegram and Sun, 1961
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment.
- Horace (65 BC - 8 BC)
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.
- Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria
So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.
- William of Baskerville in 'The Name of the Rose'
It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.
- Anatole France (1844 - 1924)
The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) in 'As You Like It'
Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness.
- Sacha Guitry (1885 - 1957)
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."
~ Sir Winston Churchill
"The great God endows His children variously. To some He gives intellect...and they
move the earth. To some He allots heart...and the beating pulse of humanity is theirs.
But to some He gives only a soul, without intelligence...and these, who never grow up,
but remain always His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as if from
His palette the Artist of all has taken one color instead of many."
~ Mary Roberts Rinehart
"A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool, usually has his suspicions."
~ Anon
"Every fool finds a greater one to admire them."
~ Bioleau
"A fool may be known by six things: anger without cause; speech without profit;
change without progress; inquiry without object; putting trust in a stranger; and
mistaking foes for friends."
~ Arabian Proverb
"Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side."
~Jewish Proverb
"The fool is always beginning to live."
~ Proverb
"A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy,
and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes."
~ Robert Frost
"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?"
~ Maurice Freehill
"Foolproof systems to not take into account the ingenuity of fools."
~ Gene Brown
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
~William Blake
"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
~ Alexander Pope
"Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky."
~ Michel de Montaigne
"When in doubt, make a fool of yourself."
~Cynthia Heimel
"Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool."
~ Voltaire
"Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit."
~ Josh Billings
"There is no greater fool than he that says, 'There is no God,' unless it be the one
who says he does not know whether there is one or not."
~ -Bismarck
"A fool may have his coat embroidered with gold, but it is a fool's coat still."
~ Rivarol
"Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it."
~ Benjamin Franklin
"The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself.
The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world."
~ Charles Caleb Colton
"Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise."
~ Cato the Elder
"To be a man's fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's."
~ Penn
"None but a fool is always right."
~ Hare
"Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so."
~ Metcalf
"Wise men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by their own."
~ H.G. Bohn
"Controversy equalizes fools and wise men...and the fools know it."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something."
~ Plato
"A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool."
~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
"Only a fool knows everything. A wise man knows how little he knows."
~ Anon
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool."
~ William Shakespeare
"Lord, what fools these mortals be."
~ William Shakespeare
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) in 'Self-Reliance'
You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
- Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845)
The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.
- Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
- Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) in 'A Tale of Two Cities'
No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
- Hunter S. Thompson (1939)
Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.
- Horace Walpole (1717 - 1797)
Perhaps we are wiser, less foolish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfect in all these things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.
- Joseph Wood Krutch (1893 - 1970)
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894
April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. ~Chinese Proverb
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee,
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
~Robert Frost, "Cluster of Faith," 1962
He who is born a fool is never cured. ~Proverb
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. ~Mark Twain
If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings. ~Welsh Proverb
I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it. ~Jack Handey
We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. ~Abraham Lincoln
Even the gods love jokes. ~Plato
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. ~Will Rogers
A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark. ~Henry Louis Mencken
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. ~Douglas Adams
It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor. ~Max Eastman
Don't give cherries to pigs or advice to fools. ~Irish Proverb
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself. ~Clifton Paul Fadiman
It is better to weep with wise men than to laugh with fools. ~Spanish Proverb
I have great faith in fools - self-confidence, my friends call it. ~Edgar Allan Poe
Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one? ~George Bernard Shaw
Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job. ~Author Unknown
Happy April Fool's Day....Enjoy the Fun
A HISTORY OF APRIL FOOLS DAY
Many of the ancient cultures such as Romans and Hindus and the medieval Europeans used to celebrate New Year's Day on sometime near the vernal equinox that could range from March 20th to April 5th. In the Julian calendar, April 1st was designated as the New Year's Day and was so celebrated till 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the adoption of the new Gregorian Calendar, which specified January 1st as the New Year's Day. However, due to slow communications and resistance of people to change their traditions, many people continued to celebrate New Year's Day as before on 1st of April. Scottish only adopted the new calendar in 1660, Germans, Danish and Norwegians in 1700 and English in 1752.
Many French resisted the change and neoiites dubbed them as fools and played pranks on them. They started sending them on 'fool's errands', sent them the fake invitations for parties and tricked them into believing something false. The victims were called 'Poisson d'Avril' or 'April Fish' as the naïve fish gets caught easily and children would often tag of a fish's picture on someone's back. Thus, April Fool's Day originated and was popularly celebrated in England and in the American colonies. It evolved and was caught on quickly throughout the world to trick each other and have fun. Even today, people play pranks on each other on this day in the memory of those tradition-obsessed 'fools'.
Perhaps the best illustration of the April Fool's Pranks of the 19th century is the Thomas Nast's illustration, originally published in the April 2, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly. It highlights the various pranks that were popularly played at the time with its caption as 'All Fool's Day'. Some of the pranks shown here include women visiting an older man wearing beards and moustaches, Civil War Soldiers tricking each other such as a soldier barring the view by holding his hand on in front of the binoculars of a friend and a sailor doing the same by holding his hat over the telescope of a friend. The other tricks include a young boy tying a string on the dress of a little girl while a schoolteacher is shown with the sign of 'Old Fool' on his back.
TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS ON APRIL FOOL'S DAY
On 'All Fools' Day' or 'April Fools' Day', people play practical jokes and pranks on each other, crack jokes on the expense of victims and gift each other gag gifts and then when the victims are taken in by surprise, all the witnesses shout 'April Fool' at once. The innocent pranks such as prompting somebody that their shoelaces are undone or that they have something on their faces are quite common. Children love to use the opportunity to prank their classmates and even their schoolteachers.
At some places, one is only allowed to play jokes until 12 noon for the jokes played after that time are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator. Similarly, the victim is advised to endure the tricks with a smile on their face, exhibiting tolerance or amusement or they may suffer bad luck, It is said that those fooled by a pretty girl can expect marriage or at least friendship with her. Men are advised not to marry on this day or their wives will rule them forever. Children born on 1st of April are considered lucky generally, except in gambling where they will fare badly.
At some places, afternoon on 1st of April is called as 'Leggin'-down-day' and the people try to trip up any unsuspecting victim. Brish media, normally considered serious and sober, give in to the excitement and tomfoolery of the day and consider hoaxes on this day as a fair game. Read BBC hoaxes to know more about them. With Internet to assist them, playing pranks had become a lot easier, fun and far reaching. April Fool's Day is one of the funniest and most popular pastimes of the day.
PRACTICAL JOKES AND TRICKS
April Fool's Day is the opportunity to trick your friends or loved ones and even strangers and play practical jokes on them. Here are some out of the world ideas for you.
Rearrange somebody's drawers or file cabinets in a different order and see them baffled.
Hard boil an egg and place it in the regular egg carton the night before. In the morning, ask someone to help you make breakfast and beat the egg to make omelets. Hand them the hard-boiled egg and watch them trying to crack it!
On the other hand, you may just glue the eggs to the carton and ask someone to hand them to you in the morning. As the victims struggle to take the eggs out of the carton, they break.
There are lots of fantastic tricks for heavy sleepers. Some of the popular ones are:
Draw funny eyebrows and moustache on their faces while they are asleep.
o Place some whipped cream in their hands and tickle their nose with a feather.
o Placing someone's hand while they are asleep in a bowl of cold water is a sure way to make them wet their beds.
Go to office early by half an hour on April 1 and tape down the ball at the bottom of everybody's mouse. See everybody surprised to find out that nobody's mouse is working. Works only on scroll mouse.
This one is to play Dr Dolittle. Tape a little walky-talky on your pet or hide it somewhere near where it is laying. Walk off to a safe distance where you can keep yourself hidden from others with the other piece. As soon as another family member tries to pick up or pat on the back of your pet, say in a gruff voice, "I hate you doing this to me." See them jump with fright and shock.
Late at night, fill the hair-dryer with baby powder. Catch the expression of someone who has just washed his or her hair and turned it white by using the hair dryer.
This can be done in class, office or home. Ask your friends, colleagues and siblings to perform particular actions together at the same pre-planned time like dropping their pencils at the same time, to tie shoelaces, to reboot their computers, to drink water or any such innocent actions. These synchronized actions are sure to surprise anybody who will wonder about what is happening.
Good for teachers. Tell your students that you are just going to note the scores that they have got on their tests or exams and will hand out to them after an hour. Go to the room and them keep running out looking like very scared and tell them that the principal has just spilled coffee or ink on the test/examination papers and they will have to take them again. Note their reactions and exclamations. You can bet that the dullest of all students will loudly claim that they had done their best this time and it is not fair to them. Then you can tell them how much they have really scored.
SILLY RULES AND DECISIONS
Here are some weird and illogical rules and regulations and decisions imposed on the people in various regions. Thankfully, they were just April Fool hoaxes or they would have had drastic effects and might have resulted in rebellions, revolutions and mass movements to dethrone such stupid and eccentric authority.
In 1959, the Kokomo Tribune of Indiana announced that to cut the costs, the city police would close each night from 6 pm to 6 am and one can leave their messages on an answering machine, which will be screened by an officer in the morning. It will also lessen the pressure of work as many of the calls would be old by that time and there would be no need to answer them. A spokesman for the police commented that in the case there is an emergency call in the night, they can go check the hospitals and the coroner in the morning and know if anything has happened or not!
In 1987, a Los Angeles disc jockey that Los Angeles Highway System would be closed for an entire month for repairs from April 8. The citizens were highly alarmed by the startling news for they could not avoid the use of the highway to navigate through the city and immediately the radio station and the California Highway Patrol were flooded with thousands of frantic calls. The intense public response stunned even the station, not to mention that the California Department of Transportation didn't find it 'very funny.'
In 1991, the London Times announced the cabinet's approval of the plan of Department of Transport to alleviate overcrowding on the M25, the circular highway surrounding London by making the traffic on both carriageways travel in the same direction. Thus, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the traffic would travel clockwise while on Tuesdays and Thursdays it would travel anti-clockwise. On weekends, traffic can go on as usual.
Many people voiced their protest. A spokesman for Labor Transport warned that many people have 'trouble telling their left from their right.' A resident of Swanley, Kent said that the scheme was impractical because the villagers using the motorway to go for shopping to Orpington, would have to drive just for two miles on some days and 117 miles on others. Well, it was just a joke.
In 1993, the China Youth Daily, the official state newspaper of China had a government's decision as its first lead on the front page, where Ph.D. holders were exempted from the one child limit imposed by state to control population explosion. The story had a disclaimer in the end identifying it as a joke. Yet, Hong Kong's New Evening News and Agence France-Presse (an international news agency) were taken in and reported it as a fact.
Intellectuals of the country thought the idea to be prompted by the Singaporeans who encouraged their intellectuals to marry and have children to ensure better crop of citizens for the next generation. The Chinese government declared such hoaxes and April Fool's Day as a hazardous tradition of the West while the Guangming Daily, Beijing's main newspaper read mostly by the intellectuals, published an editorial stating April Fool's Day to be a Liar's Day and having bad influence.
In the same year, Westdeutsche Rundfunk, a German radio station, made an official announcement about a new city regulation for the citizens of Cologne where the joggers going through the park could not go faster than six mph to avoid disturbing the squirrels in the middle of their mating season.
The physicist Mark Boslough's article published in April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter state that the Alabama state legislature had passed a bill and voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi. It was to be put to the Biblical value of '3.0' instead of the actual value '3.14159'. The article reached the world over through the Internet and soon the Alabama legislature was stormed with calls protesting such an illogical move. The original article was actually a parody on the legislative attempts to confine the teaching of evolution.
In 1999, the Savings Bank of Rockville placed an ad in the Connecticut Journal-Inquirer on 31st March to announce that they would charge their customers $5 fee for the help of a live teller to ensure enhanced 'professional, caring and superior customer service.' Though, it was a joke, customers were highly agitated by it and it was reported that one woman even closed her account with the bank because of it. The bank ran a second ad revealing the first one to be just a joke with the comment of bank manager that it had actually committed the bank 'to not charging such fees.'
APRIL FOOL'S POEMS AND QUOTES
The first of April, some do say
Is set apart for All Fool's Day;
But why the people call it so
Nor I, nor they themselves, do know,
But on this day are people sent
On purpose for pure merriment.
~ -Poor Robin's Almanac (1790)
Small April sobbed, I'm going to cry
Please give me a cloud to wipe my eye;
Then April Fool, she laughed instead
And smiled a rainbow overhead.
~ Anonymous
The maple syrup's full of ants.
A mouse is creeping on the shelf.
Is that a spider on your back?
I ate the whole pie by myself.
The kitchen sink just overflowed.
A flash flood washed away the school.
I threw your blanket in the trash.
I never lie----I---
APRIL FOOL!
- Myra Cohn Livingston
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
- Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC)
You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
- Colette (1873 - 1954), in New York World-Telegram and Sun, 1961
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment.
- Horace (65 BC - 8 BC)
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.
- Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria
So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.
- William of Baskerville in 'The Name of the Rose'
It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.
- Anatole France (1844 - 1924)
The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) in 'As You Like It'
Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness.
- Sacha Guitry (1885 - 1957)
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."
~ Sir Winston Churchill
"The great God endows His children variously. To some He gives intellect...and they
move the earth. To some He allots heart...and the beating pulse of humanity is theirs.
But to some He gives only a soul, without intelligence...and these, who never grow up,
but remain always His children, are God's fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as if from
His palette the Artist of all has taken one color instead of many."
~ Mary Roberts Rinehart
"A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool, usually has his suspicions."
~ Anon
"Every fool finds a greater one to admire them."
~ Bioleau
"A fool may be known by six things: anger without cause; speech without profit;
change without progress; inquiry without object; putting trust in a stranger; and
mistaking foes for friends."
~ Arabian Proverb
"Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side."
~Jewish Proverb
"The fool is always beginning to live."
~ Proverb
"A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy,
and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes."
~ Robert Frost
"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?"
~ Maurice Freehill
"Foolproof systems to not take into account the ingenuity of fools."
~ Gene Brown
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."
~William Blake
"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
~ Alexander Pope
"Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky."
~ Michel de Montaigne
"When in doubt, make a fool of yourself."
~Cynthia Heimel
"Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool."
~ Voltaire
"Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit."
~ Josh Billings
"There is no greater fool than he that says, 'There is no God,' unless it be the one
who says he does not know whether there is one or not."
~ -Bismarck
"A fool may have his coat embroidered with gold, but it is a fool's coat still."
~ Rivarol
"Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it."
~ Benjamin Franklin
"The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself.
The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world."
~ Charles Caleb Colton
"Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise."
~ Cato the Elder
"To be a man's fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's."
~ Penn
"None but a fool is always right."
~ Hare
"Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so."
~ Metcalf
"Wise men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by their own."
~ H.G. Bohn
"Controversy equalizes fools and wise men...and the fools know it."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something."
~ Plato
"A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool."
~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
"Only a fool knows everything. A wise man knows how little he knows."
~ Anon
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool."
~ William Shakespeare
"Lord, what fools these mortals be."
~ William Shakespeare
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) in 'Self-Reliance'
You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
- Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845)
The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.
- Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
- Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) in 'A Tale of Two Cities'
No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
- Hunter S. Thompson (1939)
Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.
- Horace Walpole (1717 - 1797)
Perhaps we are wiser, less foolish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfect in all these things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.
- Joseph Wood Krutch (1893 - 1970)
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894
April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. ~Chinese Proverb
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee,
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
~Robert Frost, "Cluster of Faith," 1962
He who is born a fool is never cured. ~Proverb
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. ~Mark Twain
If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings. ~Welsh Proverb
I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it. ~Jack Handey
We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. ~Abraham Lincoln
Even the gods love jokes. ~Plato
The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. ~Will Rogers
A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark. ~Henry Louis Mencken
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. ~Douglas Adams
It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor. ~Max Eastman
Don't give cherries to pigs or advice to fools. ~Irish Proverb
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself. ~Clifton Paul Fadiman
It is better to weep with wise men than to laugh with fools. ~Spanish Proverb
I have great faith in fools - self-confidence, my friends call it. ~Edgar Allan Poe
Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one? ~George Bernard Shaw
Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job. ~Author Unknown
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