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.
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
Edible - good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
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.
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.
Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
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.
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.
Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.