OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.
Justice is a commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Take not God’s name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.
Uncommon extension of the fear of death.
The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him.
A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.
You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.
ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.
A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.
A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.
EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
Botany, n. The science of vegetables – those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.
A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator’s bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
Nature’s fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.