Oil Companies Quotes

I see a lot of damage to Mother Earth. I see water being taken from creeks where water belongs to animals, not to oil companies. ~ Winona LaDuke

There are signs that the age of petroleum has passed its zenith. Adjusted for inflation, a barrel of crude oil now sells for three times its long-run average. The large western oil companies, which cartellised the industry for much of the 20th century, are now selling more oil than they find, and are thus in the throes of liquidation. ~ James Buchan

If oil companies were to invest their high profits into alternative fuel research it will help America move toward new forms of energy. ~ Rick Renzi

This morning, prompted by increasing concerns about terrorism, oil prices reached a record high as the cost of a barrel of crude is a whopping $44.34. Wow, it seems shocking that a product of finite supply gets more expensive the more we use it. Now the terror alert means higher oil prices, which oddly enough means higher profits for oil companies giving them more money to give to politicians whose policies may favor the oil companies such as raising the terror alert level. As Simba once told us: "It's the circle of life." ~ Jon Stewart

BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that's ruining the ocean. ~ Jimmy Fallon

Nike used to be known as Blue Ribbon Sports. What's now Sara Lee used to be Consolidated Foods. And Exxon was once Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. These were name changes that worked. But for all the ones that do, there are 10 or 20 that don't. ~ James Surowiecki

The oil companies regard nuclear power as their rival, who will reduce their profits, so they put out a lot of disinformation about nuclear power. ~ James Lovelock

Why don't those damn oil companies fly their own flags on their personal property-maybe a flag with a gas pump on it. ~ Smedley Butler

So when you go up against the Far Right you go up against the big financial special interests like the Halliburtons of the world, the big oil companies, the big energy companies who work so hard to rip us off. ~ Barbara Boxer

Oil companies earned a permanent enemy in me when they messed with the electric car the first time around, and I think they continue to do a disservice in making it seem like fossil fuels are cheaper than they really are in terms of total cost. ~ Chris Paine

It's not terribly fun defending you (oil companies), but I do. ~ Larry Craig

In his first speech as Speaker, Boehner thanked his loved ones - tobacco lobbyists, the oil companies, the CEOs. ~ Jay Leno

All told, these profit levels have put the world's five largest publicly traded oil companies on track to earn more than $100 billion before year's end. Yet, at the same time that Big Oil's bottom line is going up, so are Americans' energy costs. ~ Allyson Schwartz

There are going to be questions about what major oil companies are doing with all of the resources they're accumulating. They can't escape that. ~ Pete Domenici

I want millionaires and billionaires and Big Oil companies to pay their fair share. ~ Elizabeth Warren

In the 1920s, he decided that it was cheaper to drill for oil than to buy the overvalued shares of other oil companies. After the 1929 stock market crash, he completely changed tack; he saw that oil shares were selling at a great discount to assets, and he turned to prospecting for oil on the floor of the stock exchange - in ~ Daniel Yergin

In 2003 ... the White House conspired with an oil-company funded think tank to block a major government scientific report that sought to spell out the dangers of climate change to Americans. ~ Joseph J. Romm

Britain has squandered its windfall of natural resources from North Sea oil and gas. Instead of prudently investing the 'unearned income' from nature, to build a safe, clean and green energy supply for the nation, we face unnecessary shortages. But there is still a chance to put the proceeds from liquidating our fossil fuel assets to better and more appropriate use. Instead of oil companies profiteering from climate change and oil depletion, a windfall tax could establish an Oil Legacy Fund to pay for Britain's urgent transition to a sustainable, decentralised energy system ~ Andrew Simms

The national oil companies still want to acquire some expertise so they will outsource more, but not totally. ~ Andrew Gould

There are growing concerns that oil companies are making too much in profits at the expense of consumers. ~ Pete Domenici

Interestingly, the oil companies know very well that in less than 30 years they will not only be charging very high prices, but that they will be uncompetitive with renewables. ~ Paul Hawken

Middle class families should not be forced to scrape by with less while oil companies get away with more. ~ Keith Ellison

The President's announcement sounded less like a national energy plan than like a page from an election-year play book. This Administration's plan to reduce obscene oil company profits is to regulate them less. ~ Nick Rahall

Natural gas emits only half the carbon dioxide of coal when burned, but if methane leaks when oil companies extract it from the ground in a sloppy manner - methane is far more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - it can wipe out all the advantages of natural gas over coal. ~ Thomas Friedman

oil companies are nationalities. This plane oughta say EXXON on the side instead of U. S. Navy ~ James W. Blinn

Indeed one streak in our economy, we're missing the big oil companies. We're missing other big energy companies. We're missing the big picture, and I have a record of trying to go at the problems that actually exist, and I will continue to do that. ~ Hillary Clinton

It's not just a hurricane. It's the demand for gas in China ... We're paying $3 a gallon, and the oil companies are making historic profits every quarter. ~ Ron Klein

Oil companies have gas stations. There's this whole huge structure that is about finding a new liquid for the tank. And the idea that maybe there shouldn't be a liquid, that maybe the best is an electrical grid, a sustainably powered electrical grid that we all plug into, that doesn't sit well with oil companies; ~ Michael Pollan

We need to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy. ~ Charlie Dent

Providing clean, efficient solar/electric generators to industries such as oil companies, spanning from film and event production, construction, disaster relief, agriculture, forestry, and nonprofit organizations. We're literally helping green oil companies, helping them find ways to pollute less while creating jobs. When I look at the breadth of positive impact these technologies can have, I truly get excited. Imagine a generator where ZERO fuel is used! ~ Ian Somerhalder

What do oil company executives, vampires and NASA bureaucrats all have in common? They fear solar energy. ~ Michio Kaku

Some years ago one oil company bought a fertilizer company, and every other major oil company practically ran out and bought a fertilizer company. And there was no more damned reason for all these oil companies to buy fertilizer companies, but they didn't know exactly what to do, and if Exxon was doing it, it was good enough for Mobil and vice versa. ~ Charlie Munger

But eventually it's a question of access: Getting access to fields is on top of the oil companies' agenda. We see a substantial build-up of supply occurring over the coming years. ~ Daniel Yergin

Now, the United States' response, the western response to this is a continuation of the appeasement that was started back in the '50s with Eisenhower when Iran seized western oil companies. The Americans, the British, and the Israelis, as I remember, launched an attack to try to reclaim it and - or at least the British and the Israelis did and Eisenhower vetoed it. ~ Leonard Peikoff

Member Countries shall take necessary action and/or shall establish negotiations, individually or in groups, with the oil companies with a view to adopting ways and means to offset any adverse effects on the per barrel real income of Member Countries resulting from the international monetary developments as of 15th August 1971. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Gasoline prices are soaring through the stratosphere, and the Federal Trade Commission, which is supposed to be standing up for the consumer, ought to stop playing footsie with the oil companies and take steps to protect the American people. ~ Ron Wyden

New Rule: Oil companies must stop with the advertisements implying they're friends of the environment. "At Exxon Mobil, we care about a thriving wildlife." Please
the only thing an oil executive has in common with a seagull is they'd both steal french fries from a baby. ~ Bill Maher

It seems that it is only in the United States that an almost masochistic attack on the position of its own oil companies exists. ~ John J. McCloy

Bin Laden was completely protected by the oil companies in this country who told [President] Bush not to go after him because it would piss off the Saudis. ~ Oliver Stone

We can't allow multinational oil companies boasting of record profits to gouge consumers ... We must do what we can to fix this problem. ~ Stephanie Herseth

You know how much money the oil companies have? If you need some gas, just go fill your tank off and drive off - they're not going to miss it. ~ Kid Rock

Unlike my opponent, I will not let oil companies write this country's energy plan, or endanger our coastlines, or collect another $4 billion in corporate welfare from our taxpayers. ~ Barack Obama

What oil companies don't want you to know is that refineries use a huge amount of electricity in refining gasoline. And that's usually not even figured into reports about gas cars' overall energy use. ~ Chris Paine

I think people need a break. It's not like they're out there selling bacon and booze. They want to pretend for a few hours a day that we don't live in this awful hole getting squeezed by State on one side and pious airheads on the other, all while smiling our shit-eating grins so that the oil companies keep shoveling money into our pockets. Surely God wouldn't mind people pretending life is better, even if it involves fictional pork. ~ G. Willow Wilson

You've got the oil companies fighting Pope Francis. Fighting the scientists of the world. Fighting the governor of California. They are engaged in literally a life-and-death struggle, and I have no doubt who is going to be the victor. ~ Jerry Brown

The House okayed the gasoline tax cut, which will increase the deficit, line the pockets of the oil companies, and hurt the environment; Dole said that if there was just some way this could interfere with people's sex lives, it would be perfect legislation. ~ Bill Maher

We've subsidized oil companies for a century. That's long enough. It's time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that rarely has been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits. Create these jobs. ~ Barack Obama

What's amazing to me? General Electric has a bigger budget for - special interest budget than all of the oil companies combined, and yet nobody says anything. ~ Glenn Beck

If you're picturing Farmer Juan and his family gratefully wiping sweat from their brows when you buy that Ecuadorian banana, picture this instead: the CEO of Dole Inc. in his air-conditioned office in Westlake Village, California. He's worth $1.4 billion; Juan gets about $6 a day. Much money is made in the global reshuffling of food, but the main beneficiaries are processors, brokers, shippers, supermakets, and oil companies. ~ Steven L. Hopp

The real reason we ended up getting into that type of music was our dad worked for an oil company so we spent a year overseas when we were young kids. Because of that, it was all Spanish TV and radio so we ended up having these '50s and '60s tapes, tapes of that music. ~ Zac Hanson

We've run out of good projects. This is not a money issue ... If these oil companies had fantastic projects, they'd be out there [developing new fields]. ~ Matthew Simmons

Besides commercial benefits to the oil companies, equity oil abroad also provides national energy security. ~ Dinsha Patel

I can understand where the oil company wants to deduct the cost of drilling a well. That's one of the tax breaks for oil companies - the subsidies - they get to deduct the cost of the well the year you drill. ~ Dan Benishek

People don't want to change. It's hard for people to change and it's hard for businesses to change. If I was running an oil company, I would be resistant to change too. ~ Ed Begley, Jr.

It was reported in the paper that President Bush received a 'warm reception' from the Daytona 500 drivers. Well sure, the drivers had never met anyone who was sponsored by more oil companies than they were. ~ Jay Leno

Look around. Oil companies guzzle down the billions in profits. Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, and Wall Street CEOs, the same ones the direct our economy and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. Does anyone here have a problem with that? ~ Elizabeth Warren

Even if gas prices fall, consumers will continue to be gouged at the pump the only thing that we can be sure rises faster that the price of gasoline is the skyrocketing profits of oil companies. ~ Major Owens

First of all, I'm in favor of making price gouging a crime, and in fact, one the reasons I didn't vote for the Republican House version was because there were too many breaks for the oil companies. ~ Marty Meehan

My father was a middle manager at an oil company, but I never knew anything about his work. Whatever business acumen I have just got gleaned over the years. ~ Donna Mills

The real danger is found in Humanity's refusal to move beyond the trap of instinct and into the intellectual mind. The refusal to accept our health and the health of every other living thing on this planet must always come before profit. Whether it's the oil companies, pharmaceutical companies; or anyone else; we are not Gods no matter how much the New Agers like to proclaim it. In that path lies the rubble of the enemy of life, his Fallen God Bombers and his murderous dark medics. Out of that emanates the force of fear; fear of judgement, fear of difference and fear the other will bring you pain. ~ Cole J. Davis

Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies. ~ Scott Westerfeld

Slavery is not a horror safely confined to the past; it continues to exist throughout the world, even in developed countries like France and the United States. Across the world slaves work and sweat and build and suffer. Slaves in Pakistan may have made the shoes you are wearing and the carpet you stand on. Slaves in the Caribbean may have put sugar in your kitchen and toys in the hands of your children. In India they may have sewn the shirt on your back and polished the ring on your finger. They are paid nothing.

Slaves touch your life indirectly as well. They made the bricks for the factory that made the TV you watch. In Brazil slaves made the charcoal that tempered the steel that made the springs in your car and the blade on your lawnmower. Slaves grew the rice that fed the woman that wove the lovely cloth you've put up as curtains. Your investment portfolio and your mutual fund pension own stock in companies using slave labor in the developing world. Slaves keep your costs low and returns on your investments high. ~ Kevin Bales

I think it's real important to show style now. The majority of style right now is to act like you don't have style at all, so most companies are getting rich off clothes that look torn, clothes that look worn. ~ Andre Benjamin

This obsession with leadership ... It's not neutral; it's American, this idea of the heroic leader who comes in on a white horse to save the day. I think it's killing American companies. ~ Henry Mintzberg

If we took the mission statements of 100 large industrial companies, mixed them up while everyone was asleep, and reassigned them at random, would anyone wake up tomorrow and cry, 'My gosh, where has our mission statement gone?' ~ C. K. Prahalad

On September 11, it was government that failed. Law enforcement agencies didn't detect the plot. The FBI had reports that said young men on the terrorist watch list were going from flight school to flight school, trying to find an instructor who would teach them how to fly a commercial jet. But the FBI never acted on it. The INS let the hijackers in. Three of them had expired visas. Months after the attack, the government issued visas to two dead hijackers.
The solution to such government incompetence is to give the government more power?
Congress could have done what Amsterdam, Belfast, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Paris, and Rome did: set tough standards and let private companies compete to meet them. Many of those cities switched to private companies because they realized government-run security wasn't working very well. Private-sector competition keeps the screeners alert because the airport can fire them. No one can fire the government; that's a reason government agencies gradually deteriorate. There's no competition. ~ John Stossel

Nearly all of our existing power sources are generators which use a heat cycle. This includes our coal, oil, and gas fired utilities, our automobiles, trucks, and trains, and even our nuclear fission utility power plants. ~ Wilson Greatbatch

The BP spill was the greatest environmental catastrophe in U.S. history. Yet somehow, gas companies like BP and Halliburton ran interference on reporting that story. ~ Josh Fox

Leaning against my car after changing the oil,
I hold my black hands out and stare into them
as if they were the faces of my children looking
at the winter moon and thinking of the snow
that will erase everything before they wake.
In the garage, my wife comes behind me
and slides her hands beneath my soiled shirt.
Pressing her face between my shoulder blades,
she mumbles something, and soon we are laughing,
wrestling like children among piles of old rags,
towels that unravel endlessly, torn sheets,
work shirts from twenty years ago when I stood
in the door of a machine shop, grease blackened,
and Kansas lay before me blazing with new snow,
a future of flat land, white skies, and sunlight.
After making love, we lie on the abandoned
mattress and stare at our pale winter bodies
sprawling in the half-light. She touches her belly,
the scar of our last child, and the black prints
of my hand along her hips and thighs. ~ B.H. Fairchild

Marinara Sauce Tomato Sauce Makes about 3 cups 2 large garlic cloves, lightly smashed 1/4 cup olive oil 2 pounds very ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, or one 28-ounce can Italian peeled tomatoes, drained and chopped Salt 8 to 10 fresh basil leaves, torn into pieces In a large skillet, cook the garlic in the olive oil over medium heat, pressing it occasionally with the back of a spoon, until golden, about 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes and salt to taste. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring often, until the sauce is thick, 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the tomatoes. Stir in the basil leaves. Serve over hot cooked spaghetti or other pasta. ~ Allen Rucker

Trees, now - Slothrop's intensely alert to trees, finally. When he comes in among trees he will spend time touching them, studying them, sitting very quietly near them and understanding that each tree is a creature, carrying on its individual life, aware of what's happening around it, not just some hunk of wood to be cut down. Slothrop's family actually made its money killing trees, amputating them from their roots, chopping them up, grinding them to pulp, bleaching that to paper and getting paid for this with more paper. "That's really insane." He shakes his head. "There's insanity in my family." He looks up. The trees are still. They know he's there. They probably also know what he's thinking. "I'm sorry," he tells them. "I can't do anything about those people, they're all out of my reach. What can I do?" A medium-size pine nearby nods its top and suggests, "Next time you come across a logging operation out here, find one of their tractors that isn't being guarded, and take its oil filter with you. That's what you can do. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

We look jealously around at others, noting their lack of grubby visible bra straps or crusty under-eye mascara sprinkles, and it's hard not to be resentful. Why you and not me? you think, squinting angrily at this person who probably has a beautiful apartment and an actual career and a boyfriend who never uses a skateboard to go from place to place.

But perhaps he has $12.37 in his checking account, or she has no idea how to cook anything, or he slowly lets his car rot from inside rather than pony up the thirty bucks to get the oil changed. Chances are good that person is looking at you the same way. ~ Kelly Williams Brown

Here are problems with the Turkish products inside Russia and the tourism going down. People are worried about that. But the really big economic weapons, oil and especially natural gas, those have not been brought into play yet - mostly in the form of threat so far. So basically the view from here is that, yeah, things are getting bad, but they could still get much, much worse. ~ Peter Kenyon

American tax dollars spent on education are meant to support students, not support aggressive, deceptive, and misleading marketing campaigns by certain for-profit education companies. ~ Sherrod Brown

Most companies target women as end users, but few are effectively utilizing female employees when it comes to innovating for female consumers. When women are empowered in the design and innovation process, the likelihood of success in the marketplace improves by 144%! ~ Indra Nooyi

As these contrasts show, capitalism has undergone enormous changes in the last two and a half centuries. While some of Smith's basic principles remain valid, they do so only at very general levels.
For example, competition among profit-seeking firms may still be the key driving force of capitalism, as in Smith's scheme. But it is not between small, anonymous firms which, accepting consumer tastes, fight it out by increasing the efficiency in the use of given technology. Today, competition is among huge multinational companies, with the ability not only to influence prices but to redefine technologies in a short span of time (think about the battle between Apple and Samsung) and to manipulate consumer tastes through brand-image building and advertising. ~ Ha-Joon Chang

Or consider how we citizens of rich countries obtain our oil and minerals. Teodoro Obiang, the dictator of tiny Equatorial Guinea, sells most of his country's oil to American corporations, among them Exxon Mobil, Marathon, and Hess. Although his official salary is a modest $60,000, this ruler of a country of 550,000 people is richer than Queen Elizabeth II. He owns six private jets and a $35 million house in Malibu, as well as other houses in Maryland and Cape Town and a fleet of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys. Most of the people over whom he rules live in extreme poverty, with a life expectancy of forty-nine and an infant mortality of eighty-seven per one thousand (this means that more than one child in twelve dies before its first birthday). ~ Peter Singer

Russia does not have a modern economy: it's a petro-power. The only thing it sells that the world wants to buy is oil and natural gas. When was the last time anyone bought a Russian computer? A Russian car? A Russian cell phone? Russia is so dependent on high energy prices that if oil falls below $100 a barrel, the Kremlin can't meet payroll. ~ Kathleen Troia McFarland

I think there's been this long cycle of the big companies making a lot of money by underestimating people's intelligence and people are used to it now. So, they're so used to having their intelligence underestimated that, for most of them, it really isn't worth the bother of paying a little more attention to something that might hit them on a deeper level. But you can't really read people's minds. ~ J. Robbins

Go on bravely in the spirit of humility to make your general confession; - but I entreat you, be not troubled by any sort of fearfulness. The scorpion who stings us is venomous, but when his oil has been distilled, it is the best remedy for his bite; - even so sin is shameful when we commit it, but when reduced to repentance and confession, it becomes salutary and honourable. ~ Francis De Sales

You know, oil prices from 2007, on the strength of a very robust global economy and a very robust emerging China, many of you will recall, ramped up to near $150 a barrel. Then we had the financial - U.S. financial collapse. Oil prices collapsed all the way down to $40 a barrel. ~ Rex Tillerson

Is France a completely open market to G.E.? No, of course not. I think we're more discerning about China because it's China, and they're big, and they're more concerning. But the best global companies are ones that are nuanced. ~ Jeffrey R. Immelt

We must surely appear to the world as exactly what we are: a nation that organizes its economy around consuming twice as much oil as it produces, and around the profligate wastefulness of the wars and campaigns required to defend such consumption. In recent years we have defined our national interest largely in terms of the oil fields and pipelines we need to procure fuel. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I have visited people whose health has been endangered by tar sands oil. I have watched neighbors struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy. I have seen solar panels and wind turbines become an increasingly familiar part of the landscape. ~ Frances Beinecke

Successful companies will almost always be described in terms of a clear strategy, good organization, strong corporate culture, and customer focus. But whether these things drive company performance, or whether they're mainly attributions based on performance, is a different matter. ~ Phil Rosenzweig

In the middle ages, people took potions for their ailments. In the 19th century they took snake oil. Citizens of today's shiny, technological age are too modern for that. They take antioxidants and extract of cactus instead. ~ Charles Krauthammer

It's going to take a while before we see a real shift in the students and the dancers that are going into professional companies because it takes so many years of training, but I do think that there's a new crop of dancers, of minority dancers that are entering into the ballet world. ~ Misty Copeland

If a man voluntarily allows himself to be crushed, he yields the oil of moral energy which sustains the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

You get a lot of apps and companies that are trying to sell you on something that's totally useless or potentially unhealthy. Only occasionally does something really worthwhile really come out. ~ Thomas Middleditch

After the oil spill, I had this strong feeling that if I ever were to be blessed in having children, I never wanted my kids to see me pumping gas at a gas station. I think it's our responsibility to make the changes that we need to take regardless of convenience. ~ Alyssa Milano

My hometown is 30,000 people. It's remote, but it's an oil town, so it's developed. There's definitely a mill mentality: not a lot of people leave. It's a lot of long hours, shift work. Even my Dad, who's a dentist worked hard, because that's what people do up there. ~ Aaron Lines

As a major economic force worldwide, India and Indian companies have the opportunity to set the standards in Asia in terms of women's right to decent work. ~ Michelle Bachelet

Control oil and you control money. That's how you become a dominant player in the new Great Game - the one that Putin has been playing so masterfully in his effort to engineer the demise of the dollar. ~ Marin Katusa

The idea of investing in the positivity of employees is often low down on companies' priority lists. ~ Shawn Achor

Wanting to Die

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don't always die,
but dazzled, they can't forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue! -
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit, a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly ~ Anne Sexton

This welfare for wealthy companies wastes taxpayer dollars, harms the environment, and makes a mockery of the recent reductions in federal social spending programs. ~ Ralph Nader

I heard a quote once in a documentary about a band that said you're better off owning everything 100 percent and selling 20,000 copies of an album than signing with a record company and selling a million copies. There has never been a truer statement about show business than that. ~ Bill Burr

Observing and understanding the social media phenomenon is one thing-leveraging this trend for advertising purposes is quite another. While most companies recognize the value of social media advertising opportunities, not many have figured out how to execute these kinds of campaigns and the unique risks they entail because of the potential that a viral marketing effort can backfire and actually harm a brand. ~ Stephen Jin-Woo Kim

Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil O'er books consumed the midnight oil? ~ John Gay