Tom Lehrer Quotes (1928-2025)

“Periodic table There's antimony, arsenic, aluminium, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and, nitrogen and rhenium, And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium, And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium, Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium, And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium, And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium, And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium. There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium, And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium, And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium. There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium, And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium, And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium, Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium, And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium, Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium, And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium. There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium, And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium, And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium, And chlorine, cobalt, carbon, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium. These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, And there may be many others, but theyhaven't been discovered.”

“Dear Mr. Lehrer:  I am sorry to inform you that there is no interest in your  "ALBUM OF SONGS".  Thank you for submitting your songs to us.        ::Sincerely,        ::CAPITOL RECORDS, INC.”

“Lehrer was able to express and to expose, in humorous verse and lilting music, some of the most powerful dangers of the second half of the century … Many of the causes of which Lehrer sang became, three decades later, part of the main creative impulse of mankind.”