VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.
MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.
ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.
International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one.
Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure.
RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.
RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.
UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
Glutton- A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.
Condole – to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
Introduction – a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.
NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.