Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
You don’t have to be stupid to be a Christian, … but it probably helps.
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.
Beware of the compound adjective, beloved of the tyro and the ‘poetess’.
Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Fear has no brains it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.
acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.
AMNESTY, n. The state’s magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute.
BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
History – An account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.
Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.
Marriage, n.: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
Unacquainted with grief, I knew not how to appraise my bereavement; I could not rightly estimate the strength of the stroke.
Deep sadness is an artist of powers that affects people in different ways. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, shocking all the emotions to a sharper life. To another, it comes as the blow of a crushing strike.
Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the world in which you live!
So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter’s field I shall soon have both. What wealth!
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.
The hardest tumble a man can take is to fall over his own bluff.
In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.
In the presence of death reason and philosophy are silent
A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.
TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.
DOG: A kind of additional or subsidiary Diety designed to catch the overflow or surplus of the world’s worship.
JEALOUS, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.
Prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Achievement is the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
You scoundrel, you have wronged me,” hissed the philosopher, “May you live forever!
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.
Bore: a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Piracy n: commerce without its folly-swaddles – just as God made it.
Abstainer: a weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Christian: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour.
A statesman who is enamored of existing evils as distin-quished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is instead of as it should be.
Mausoleum n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
Epitaph n: an inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Education n: that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Destiny n: a tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure.
Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
History n: an account mostly false of events mostly unimportant which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves and soldiers mostly fools.
Acquaintance n: a person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to.
Ignoramus: a person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.
Appeal in law: to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Litigant: a person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bone.
Marriage n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master a mistress and two slaves making in all two.
Philanthropist: a rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one’s voice.
Painting n: the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
Peace: in international affairs a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Responsibility n: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God Fate Fortune Luck or one’s neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Commendation n: the tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble but do not equal our own.
Pray v: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Heathen n. A beknighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
Infidel n: in New York one who does not believe in the Christian religion in Constantinople one who does.
Apologize v: to lay the foundation for a future offence.
Perseverance n.: A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves a glorious success.
Achievement: The death of an endeavor and the birth of disgust.
Women and foxes being weak are distinguished by superior tact.
Admiration: Our polite recognition of another man’s resemblance to ourselves.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
Wit – the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure.
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man – who has no gills.
Spring beckons! All things to the call respond the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth – two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
Insurance – an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Experience – the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is – it is her shadow.
Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one’s voice.
Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.
Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Liberty: One of Imagination’s most precious possessions.
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
Alliance – in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Perseverance – a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.