Back in December Johnathan Pearce, of Samizdata, speculated on the answers to this question if it was asked of American politicians, journalists, preachers, Literary, and TV characters, and celebrities.
This, of course, led to his readers to have at it with regards to what similar worthies, from around the world, and throughout history, would say, in the comments.
To hilarious, thought provoking, effect.
I could not resist joining in the fun. ;-D
I had actually done more than 11, but set the list aside, and forgot all about it!
I found it this morning, and decided to do a follow-up before I forgot again (With 11 new ones added for President Obama, in honor of his first 100 Days in Office!). ;-D
1. As the Book of Common Prayer Says:
If any man can show just cause why the chicken may not lawfully cross the road, let him now speak, or else, hereafter, forever hold his peace.
2. Aesop: Any excuse will serve a chicken.
3. Ibycus: A chicken needs no reason, nor a friendship.
4. Laurens Van Der Post:
A. Chickens are on their own journey, presuppose their own change, and movement, and one tries to stop them from crossing the road at one's eternal peril.
B. Chickens are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they MUST cross the road.
5. Confucius Say:
A. If a chicken, in the morning, crosses the road, it may die in the evening without regret.
B. The chicken may be made to follow the path across the road, but it may not be made to understand why it did so.
6. Diogenes the Cynic: Looking for an honest man.
7. Marcus Aurelius Antonius: Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
8. John Heywood: Chickens must needs go whom the devil doth drive.
9. Ben Franklin: God helps them who help themselves.
10. Samuel Johnson: Curiousity is one of the permanent, and certain, characteristics of a vigorous chicken.
11. Oliver Goldsmith: The Chicken, to gain some private ends, went mad, and crossed the road.
12. Nathan Hale: I only regret that I have but 1 chicken that wanted to cross the road.
13. Beethoven: It wanted to seize fate by the throat.
14. Oliver Wendell Holmes: The Rooster has his will - but the chicken has her way!
15. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: Upon this question a page of history is worth a volume of logic.
16. Freud: The great question...which I have not been able to answer, despite my years of research, is "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
17. Irving Berlin: Anything you can do, the chicken thinks it can do better.
18. Dale Carnegie: It wants to win friends, and influence farmers.
19. Mae West: Goodness had nothing to do with it.
20. Andy Razof: Why should I care...It ain't misbehavin'.
21. Peter Arno: I consider your question unethical, and lousy.
22. Andy Warhol: To become world famous.
23. Phil Ochs: I'm sure my anser wouldn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends.
24. Jack Weinberg: We have a saying in the Free Speech Movement that we didn't trust anybody asking that question.
25. Billy Collins: Of all the questions you might want to ask about chickens the only one you ever hear is...Why did the chicken cross the road?
26. David Allen Stockman: None of us really understands what's going on with all these chickens.
27. Oliver Stone: Crossing the road is good! Crossing the road is right! Crossing the road works! Crossing the road will save the chicken!
28. James Carville: It's the economy, stupid!
29. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: I suppose it could have stayed home and laid eggs all day.
30. President Barack Obama: He can't seem to be pinned down on where HE stands on this question when pressed by the Mainstream Media...
A. In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about the hope of a chicken.
B. With the changing economy, no one has lifetime employment.
C. When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - chickens crossing the road.
D. We`re not going to baby sit a chicken.
E. We have real chickens crossing the road. These chickens must be found. They must be pursued and they must be fried.
F. There are patriots who oppose chickens crossing the road and there are patriots who support chickens crossing the road. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
G. The Bush Administration`s failure to be consistently involved in helping answer this question has been both wrong for American Farmers, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Agricultural Community as a whole.
H. Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.
I. If the chicken is crossing the right road and it's willing to keep walking, eventually it'll make progress.
J. I don't oppose all chickens crossing the road. What I am opposed to is a dumb chicken. What I am opposed to is a rash chicken.
K. Focusing your life solely on making it across ANY road shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of the chicken. Because it`s only when the chicken crosses the RIGHT road that it realizes its true potential.
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