Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.
Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.
RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.
QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think. Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.
NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.
Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Economy, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.
CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts - guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
The circus a place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.
Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is, instead of as it should be.
WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.
PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.
TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.
MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.
HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.
IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.
NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.
Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.
Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.
REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.
A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything. The master of the art accomplishes the formidable task of discrimination.
ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.