It Has Been Said

IT HAS BEEN SAID and collected by NORMAN C. ELLSTRAND* "You see one redwood tree, you've seen them all."—Ronald Reagan "Agriculture is something like farming; only farming is doing it."—Anonymous "A weed is a plant whose virtues have not been discovered."—Ralph Waldo Emerson "If a plant grows in abundance, it is a plant of virtue."—Old Gypsy proverb "A traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment ."—Charles Darwin "This study was supported by NSF MBS75-14268 and inspired by paying 95 cents for a rotten avocado."—Daniel H. Janzen "If I had my life to live over ... I would pick more daisies."—Nadine Stair at 85 "Plants stand still and wait to be counted."—John Harper "Plants do it with style."—Anonymous "Plants grown on you—at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney."—Bumper Sticker "If you have imagination as a grain of sesame seed, all things are possible to you."—Donald Shimoda Material appearing under this title is collected with the aim of making the serious a bit less serious, the ponderous a bit less heavy, and die reading hours a bit more fun. Toward this goal we invite a guest editor of this feature for each issue. Will readers volunteer to share their senses of humor by collecting or recollecting items that have brought smiles to their faces? We invite your participation. ?Address: Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside , California 92521. 558 I Norman C. Ellstrand and DonaldJ. Fretland · It Has Been Said and collected by DONALDJ. FRETLANDi "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be research."—J. C Stamos "Statistics is like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive. What they conceal is vital."—Arthur Koestler "The essayist is sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest."—E. B. White "It is the business of scientists to explain away the magic in the world."— Quinn and Gould "Mother Nature is a bitch."—Anonymous "A fish rots from the head down."—Old Turkish proverb "We remember our dreams; we do not remember our sleep."—Marguerite Yourcenar "Gentlemen, everyone in this room knows the difference between a live horse and a dead horse. Pray, therefore, let us cease flogging the latter."—Sir Peter Medawar (in conversation) "Collectors are people who covet other people's property instead of their wives."—John F. Fleming "Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."— Anonymous, but attributed to Onsager "Humility is not a state of mind conducive to the advancement of learning."— Sir Peter Medawar "It is so very difficult for a sick man not to be a scoundrel."—SamuelJohnson "Every truth starts life as a heresy and ends life as an orthodoxy."—Thomas Huxley "Entropy is the universe's tendency to go completely bullshit."—Anonymous, but atributed to Onsager "That which is possible is inevitable."—William Carlos Williams tAddress: Department of Biological Research, Searle Laboratories, Skokie, Illinois 60077. Perspectives in Biology andMedicine, 27, 4 ¦ Summer 1984 \ 559 ...