bnormal -
Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and
conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal. Ambrose
Bierce
Absence
- Absence is to love what
wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles
the great. Comte de Bussy-Rabutin
- That which extinguishes
small passions and increases great ones. La
Rochefoucauld
- That which makes the heart
grow fonder of somebody else.Anon.
Absolute
- The most fatal illusion...
life is growth and motion. Brooks Atkinson
- God... all else is
relative. Will Herberg
- Everything absolute belongs
to pathology. Friedrich W. Nietzsche
Accident - An
inevitable occurence due to the action of immutable
natural laws. Ambrose Bierce
- A condition in which
presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better.
Anon.
Actor - a guy who, if
you ain’t about him, he ain’t listening. Marlon
Brando
Advice - what we ask
for when we already know the answer but wish we
didn’t. Erica Jong
- Always a confession.Emile
Herzog
Age- Always 15 years
older than I am. Bernard Baruch
- When a man is young he
writes songs; grown up, he speaks in proverbs; in old age
he preaches pessimism.Hebrew Proverb
- A man is still young as
long as women can make him happy or unhappy. He reaches
middle age when they can no longer make him unhappy. He
is old when they cease to make him either happy or
unhappy.Anon.
AMERICA- A land of
boys who refuse to grow up. Salvador de Madariaga
- A "happy-ending"
nation.Dore Schary
Americans- (An
Englishman is) a person who does things because they have
been done before. (An American is) a person who does
things because they haven't been done before.Mark
Twain
Anatomy - Something
everyone has but it looks better on a girl. Bruce
Raeburn
Ancestry - An account
of one's descent from an ancestor who did not
particularly care to trace his own. Ambrose Bierce
Anthologist - A person
who uses scissors and taste. Philip Van Doren Stern
Apology- An expression
bestowed on a man if you are wrong, on a woman if you are
right. Anon.
Appetite- The best
sauce.French Proverb
Applause- The spur of
noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones. Charles
Caleb Colton
- At the start of a lecture,
it is a manifestation of faith. If it comes in the
middle, a sign of hope. At the end, it is always charity.
Adapted from Fulton J. Sheen
Archaeologist- The
best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the
more interested he is in her. Agatha Christie
Aristotle (384-322
B.C.)- (He) invented science, but destroyed philosophy. Alfred
North Whitehead
Art- Art is not
nature. Art is nature digested. Art is a sublime
excrement.George Moore
- What we know in terms of
what we hope.George Jean Nathan
Artists- A man who
won't prostitute his art, except for money. Henry
Meyers
- A person who you can
silence by shutting his book. Max Gralnick
Baby - An alimentary
canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility
at the other.
Elizabeth I. Adamson
Bachelor- A man who
never makes the same mistake once. Ed Wynn
- One who is nice to women
all his life. Anon.
Banker- A fellow who
hands you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants
it back the minute it begins to rain. Mark Twain
Barometer -
An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of
weather we are having. Ambrose Bierce
Bargain- A transaction
in which each participant thinks he has cheated the
other. Anon.
Bed- The happiest part
of a man's life. Samuel Johnson
Beginning - Half the
whole. Aristotle
Bibliomania- Desire to
have many books, and never use them. Henry Peacham
Bigamy- Having one
wife too many. Monogamy is the same. Oscar Wilde
Birthday- The funeral
of the former year. Alexander Pope
Blushing- Virtue's
color. English Proverb
Bore- A person who
talks when you wish him to listen. Ambrose Bierce
Boredom- The desire of
activity without the fit means of gratifying the desire.George
Bancroft
Boss- The man at the
office who is early when you are late and late when you
are early. Anon.
Brain- (Something
that) starts working the moment you get up in the
morning, and does not stop until you get into the office.
Robert Frost
Broadway- A place
where people spend money they haven't earned to buy
things they don't need to impress people they don't like.
Walter Winchell
Budgeting- A
mathematical confirmation of your suspicions. A. A.
Latimer
Business- The art of
extracting money from another man's pocket without
resorting to violence.Max Amsterdam
Capital Punishment-
Simply doubles the number of murders. David Schwartz
Caricature- Rough
truth. George Meredith
Certainty- A dusty
answer.George Meredith
Children- The
husband's dangerous rivals. Sigmund Freud
- Defective adults. Evelyn
Waugh
Chivalry- The
deportment of a man toward any woman not his wife. Anon.
City- A human zoo. Desmond
Morris
Civilization- A
movement and not a condition. Arnold J. Toynbee
Civilized- When you
take a bath. When you don't take a bath, you are
cultured. Lin Yutang
Classics- Examples of
how to think, not of what to think. Jacques Barzun
Cleverness- A tool
used to fetch foolish admirers.Jewish Proverb
Clothes- Two-thirds of
beauty. Welsh Proverb
Club- A place where we
sleep. Anon.
CocktailParty-
The form of friendship without the warmth. Brooks
Atkinson
Comedy- A sad
business. Charles Chaplin
Committee- A group of
the unfit, appointed by the unwilling, to do the
unnecessary.Henry Cooke
- A group of people who talk
for hours to produce a result called minutes.Anon.
- A group that keeps minutes
and wastes hours. Anon.
Compliments- Things
you say to people when you don't know what else to say. Constance
Jones
Conditions- Something
no one is content with. Anon.
Confidence- The
feeling you have before you know better. Anon.
Congressman- A man who
votes for all appropriations and against all taxes. Henry
Ashurst
Conquerors- A
conqueror is always a lover of peace. He would like to
make his entry into our state unopposed. Karl
Clausewitz
Conservatism- The
politics of reality. William F. Buckley 2
- To keep what
progressiveness has accomplished. R. H. Fulton
- Adherence to the old and
tried, against the new and untried. Abraham Lincoln
Conservative- One who
admires radicals a century after they're dead. Leo C.
Rosten
- A man who believes in
reform, but not now. Mort Sahl
- One who wears both belt and
suspenders. Anon.
Consistency- The last
refuge of the unimaginative. Oscar Wilde
Contentment- Simply
refined indolence. Richard Haliburton
Coquetry- Mostly
innocent cruelty. Anon.
Crisis- The crisis of
yesterday is the joke of tomorrow. Herbert G. Wells
Critics- A man of such
infinite wisdom and flawless taste that any opinion he
may utter is to be accepted immediately and without
question"unless you happen to disagree with him.
George Oppenheimer
Cruelty- To beat a
cripple with his own crutches. Thomas Fuller
Culture- What your
butcher would have if he were a surgeon. Mary P. Poole
- Anything that people do and
monkeys don't. Anon.
Cynic- A man who tells
you the truth about your own motives. Russell Green
Dancing- A public
revelation of the secrets of the subconscious mind and
its revelations are often disastrous. Gelett Burgess
Death- The poor man's
doctor.German Proverb
Definition- To define
is to exclude and negate. Jose Ortega y Gasset
Demagogue- An
undetected liar. Walter Lippmann
Democracy- A small
firm core of common agreement surrounded by a rich
diversity of individual differences. Anon.
Diplomacy- Saying
nothing nicely. Anon.
Diplomat- A person who
knows the answers, but gives such as he chooses. Max
Gralnick
- A person who can tell you
to go to hell in such a way that you actually look
forward to the trip. Caskie Stinnett
Disarmament- Argument
between nations to scuttle all weapons that are obsolete.
Leonard L. Levinson
Dog- If you pick up a
starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite
you. This is the principal difference between a man and
his dog. Mark Twain
Dream- Mere
productions of the brain, and fools consult interpreters
in vain. Jonathan Swift
Dreamer - All men of
action. James G. Huneker
Drunkard- A living
corpse. Saint John Chrysostom
Eccentricity-
Eccentricity is originality without sense. John S.
Blackie
Editor- One whose
profession is arguing with writers. Anon.
- He who makes a long story
short. Anon.
Epitaph- Praise too
late. Max Gralnick
- Postponed compliments. Elbert
Hubbard
Equality- (A
condition) essential to good breeding. George Bernard
Shaw
Etiquette - Getting
sleepy in company and not showing it. Eugene E.
Brussell
Evil- A form of good,
of which the results are not immediately manifest. Honore
de Balzac
The three evils are the sea,
fire, and woman. Greek Proverb
Examinations- When the
foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer. Oscar
Wilde
Experience - What
you've got when you're too old to get a job. Leon
Abramson
- Not what happens to a man.
It is what a man does with what happens to him. Aldous
Huxley
- A comb given to a man when
he is bald. Irish Proverb
Eminience- Nearest to
the gallows. Chinese Proverb
Englishmen- Germans
pretending to be French. Max Eastman
Fair Play- Turn about
is fair play. English Proverb
Fanaticism- Redoubling
your effort when you have forgotten your aim. George
Santayana
Farewell- Wasted
sadness. One should leave quietly. Adapted from Jerome
K. Jerome
Fatalism- An excuse
for practical inaction or mental indolence. Ralph
Barton Perry
Finance- The art of
passing money from one hand to another until it finally
disappears.Leonard L. Levinson
Footnote- Tedious
information set aside where it can be easily skipped. Leonard
L. Levinson
Forty- Every man at
forty is a fool or physician. John Ray
Freedom- The right to
be wrong, not the right to do wrong. John Diefenbaker
- Being able to turn down an
invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.Jules
Renard
- The possibility of change.Johanan
Twerski
Friend- An old wife,
an old dog, and ready money. Benjamin Franklin
Guest- The first day a
man is a guest, the second a burden, the third a pest.
Edward R. Laboulaye
Golf- A game where the
ball lies poorly and the player well. Anon.
Good- Many meanings.
For examples, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a
range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good
shot, but not necessarily a good man. Gilbert Keith
Chesterton
Gossip- Ear pollution.
Anon.
Habit- Something you
can do without thinking"which is why most of us have
so many of them. Frank Cl.ark
Hair- The beauty of
women. Italian Proverb
Happiness- A balance
between what one is and what one has. Anon.
Hatred- The coward's
revenge for being intimidated. George Bernard Shaw
Health- Objection,
evasion, distrust and irony are signs of health. Friedrich
W. Nietzsche
- To eat what you don't want,
drink what you don't like and do what you'd rather not. Mark
Twain
Heaven- Might be
defined as the place which men avoid. Henry David
Thoreau
HebrewLanguage-
(A language which) has about thirty words to express
justice and humanity, but not a single one for slave. Joseph
S. Bloch
Heir- One whose tears
are masked laughter. Publilius Syrus
Hell- Hell is other
people. Jean-Paul Sartre
Hen- An egg's way of
making another egg. Samuel Butler
Heredity- The tenth
transmitter of a foolish face. Richard Savage
- Something you believe in
when you child's grades are good. Anon.
Heretic- A fellow who
disagrees with you regarding something neither of you
knows anything about.William C. Brann
- The less numerous party.Edward
Gibbon
Hermit- Anyone without
an automobile. Anon.
Hero- A hero is no
braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes
longer. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- One who is afraid to run
away. EnglishProverb
- One who thinks slower than
a coward. William Rotsler
History- Petrified
imagination. Arthur Baer
- Distilled newspapers.Thomas
Carlyle
- The propaganda of the
victorious. Anon.
- Opinions rather than actual
events. Baruch Spinoza
Honor- Without
money... nothing but a malady. Jean Racine
Human beings- The
greatest of the earth's parasites. Martin H. Fischer
Humor- The
exploitation of disproportion. Russell Green
- What makes you laugh at
something which would make you mad if it happened to you.
Anon.
Hunting- When a man
wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport: when the tiger
wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. George
Bernard Shaw
Hypocrite- A mouth
that prays, a hand that kills. ArabianProverb
Impossibility- The word for
weakling. Anon.
Independence- Living
in a manner that you can look any man in the eye and tell
him to go to hell. Anon.
Inflation- The first
panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the
currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary
prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. Ernest
Hemingway
- Seeing a youngster get his
first job at a salary you dreamed of as the culmination
of your career. William Vaughan
Intuition- The strange
instinct that tells a woman she is right, whether she is
or not. Oscar Wilde
Irony- The last phase
of disillusion. Anatole France
Jews- The work of
eighteen hundred years of idiotic persecution. Emile
Zola
Journalism- The
survival of the vulgarest. Oscar Wilde
Judge- A speaking law.
Cicero
Jury - Twelve persons
chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.Robert
Frost
King- A highly paid
model for postage stamps. Anon.
Kitten- The trouble
with a kitten is THAT // Eventually it becomes a CAT. Ogden
Nash
Labor- The happiness
of men consists in life. And life is in labor. Leon
Tolstoy
- An activity by which money
is pumped from one pocket into another. Anon.
Lady- One who makes a
man behave like a gentleman.Russell Lynes
language- The main
instrument of man's refusal to accept the world as it is.
George Steiner
Law- Simulation of
reality. John C. Lilly
Lawsuit- A machine
which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage. Ambrose
Bierce
Lawyers- Lawyers are
just like physicians: what one says, the other
contradicts. Sholom Aleichem
- One who defends you at the
risk of your pocketbook, reputation and life.Eugene E.
Brussell
- One whose opinion is worth
nothing unless paid for.EnglishProverb
Learned- Dust shaken
out of a book and into an empty skull.Ambrose Bierce
Liar- One who tells an
unpleasant truth. Oliver Herford
- A liar is a man who does
not know how to deceive. Luc de Vauvenargues
Liberal- Anyone whose
ideas coincide with yours. Russell Baker
- A man who tells other
people what to do with their money. Le Roi Jones
- A radical with family and
children. Anon.
Liberty- The right to
tell people what they do not want to hear. George
Orwell
- Liberty means
responsibility. That is why most men dread it. George
Bernard Shaw
Library- A collection
of 15,000 mystery novels and 35 other books. Anon.
Life- A theater in
which the worst people often have the best seats. Aristonymus
- The life of every man is a
diary in which he means to write one story, and writes
another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the
volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. James
M. Barrie
- An experiment in the art of
living, but you die before you see the result. Russell
Green
- Not a spectacle or a feast;
it is a predicament. George Santayana
- That incurable disease from
which all have thus far died, and only those survive who
are never born. Moritz Saphir
Literature - A
challenge to despair. Eric Bentley
- The orchestration of
platitudes. Thornton Wilder
London- The city San
Francisco thinks it is. Anon.
Love- The effort a man
makes to be satisfied with only one woman. Paul
Geraldy
- The delusion that one woman
differs from another. Henry Louis Mencken
- The triumph of imagination
over intelligence. Henry Louis Mencken
- Like war: you begin when
you like and leave off when you can. SpanishProverb
Luck - The success of
people you don't like. Hyman, Maxwell, Berston
Majority- A few
powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating
scoundrels and subservient weaklings,and a mass of men
who trudge after them without in the least knowing their
own minds. Johann W. Goethe
Man- A brief and
transitory episode in the life of one of the meanest of
the planets. Arthur J. Balfour
- An intellect served by
organs. Louis G. de Bonald
- Half dust, half deity. Lord
Byron
- The only animal that eats
when he is not hungry. Jerry Dashkin
- A sack of dung, the food of
worms. Saint Bernard
- A burlesque of what he
should be. Arthur Schopenhauer
- The only animal that
blushes"or needs to. Mark Twain
Marketplace- The place
set apart where men may deceive each other. Anacharsis
- Three women and a goose
make a marketplace. ItalianProverb
Marriage- Fever in
reverse: it starts with heat and ends with cold.German
Proverb
- The most expensive way to
get your laundry done. Charles Jones
- An evil, but... a necessary
evil. Menander
- A covenant which has
nothing free but the entrance.Michel de Montaigne
- An end of many short
follies being one long stupidity. Friedrick W.
Nietzsche
- An institution which is
popular because it combines the maximum of temptation
with the maximum of opportunity. George Bernard Shaw
- The one subject on which
all women agree and all men disagree. Oscar Wilde
- The only life sentence that
is suspended by bad behavior. Anon.
- By day an endless noise; by
night the echo of forgotten joys. Anon.
- Something that makes two
one but which one? Anon.
- It begins with a prince
kissing an angel. It ends with a baldheaded man looking
across the table at a fat woman. Anon.
Martyrdom- Blood as
verification to the truth. Friedrich W. Nietzsche
Mathematics- A study
independent of the actual world. Adapted from Cassius
J. Keyser
- The region of absolute
necessity, to which not only the actual world, but every
possible world must conform.Bertrand A. Russell
Maxim - Little
sermons. Gelett Burgess
Medicine- Consists of
amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. Voltaire
Memoirs- To speak ill
of everybody except oneself. Marechal Petain
Metaphysician- A man
who goes into a dark cellar at midnight without a light
looking for a black cat that is not there. Bowen of
Colwood
- Men with no taste for exact
facts, but only a desire to transcend and forget them as
quickly as possible. Henry Louis Mencken
- A man who excels in writing
with black ink on a black ground. Charles de
Talleyrand
Metaphysics- The
science of proving what we don't understand. Josh
Billings
- The finding of bad reasons
for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these
reasons is no less an instinct. Francis H. Bradley
- An immensity of nonsense. Henry
Louis Mencken
Middle age- Middle age
is a time of life that a man first notices in his wife.Richard
Armour
- When you don't have to have
fun to enjoy yourself. Franklin P. Jones
- When you have met so many
people that every new person you meet reminds you of
someone else and usually is. Ogden Nash
- When a man stops dodging
temptation and temptation starts dodging him. Anon.
Miracle- A physical
event described by men who did not see it. Elbert
Hubbard
Moderation- The belief
that you will be a better man tomorrow than you were
yesterday. Murray Kempton
Monarchy- The master
fraud, which shelters all others. Thomas Paine
Money- A guarantee
that we may have what we want in the future. Though we
need nothing at the moment, it insures the possibility of
satisfying a necessary desire when it arises. Aristotle
- A good servant but a bad
master. Henry G. Bohn
- A new form of slavery. Leon
Tolstoy
Monotony - The awful
reward of the careful. A. G. Buckham
Monument- A boast in
stone. Anon.
Morality- Feeling
temptation but resisting it. Sigmund Freud
- The theory that every human
act must be either right or wrong, and that ninety-nine
per cent of them are wrong. Henry Louis Mencken
Museum- The home of a
pedant. Anon.
Music- The shorthand
of emotion. Leon Tolstoy
NEIGHBOR- Every man's
neighbor is his looking-glass. English Proverb
- The man who knows more
about you than you know about yourself. Elbert Hubbard
OBLIVION- The hell of
a good idea. Leonard L. Levinson
OMEN- A sign that
something will happen if nothing happens. Ambrose
Bierce
OPERA- When a guy gets
stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding, he sings. Edward
Gardner
OPPORTUNIST - One who
goes ahead and does what you always intended to do. K.
L. Krichbaum
OPTIMIST- The sort of
man who marries his sister's best friend. Henry Louis
Mencken
ORATOR- Glitterings
and sounding generalities. Rufus Choate
ORATORY- The art of
making pleasant sounds, which cause the hearers to say
"Yes, Yes" in sympathy with the performer,
without inquiring too closely exactly what he means. Samuel
Tucker
ORIGINALITY- The art
of concealing your source. Franklin P. Jones
PARADOX- A cheat: it
gains attention at first by its novelty, but later it is
discredited, when its emptiness becomes apparent. Baltasar
Gracian
PARENTS- The bones on
which children cut their teeth. Peter Ustinov
- Those who think they are
old enough to know better. Anon.
PARIS- The cafe of
Europe. Abbe Galiani
PATRIOTISM- Your
conviction that this country is superior to all other
countries because you were born in it. George Bernard
Shaw
PEDANT- One who has
read everything and remembered it. Josh Billings
- A person who knows all the
answers but doesn't understand the questions.Warren
Goldberg
- One who thinks he thinks.Anon.
PEN- A formidable
weapon, but a man can kill himself with it a great deal
more easily than he can other people. George Prentice
PEOPLE, THE- Two
classes of people in the world: those who constantly
divide the people of the world into two classes, and
those who do not. Robert Benchley
- Three
kinds"commonplace men, remarkable men, and lunatics.Mark
Twain
- There are only two kinds of
people who are really fascinating"people who know
absolutely everything and people who know absolutely
nothing. Oscar Wilde
PERFECTION- Nothing
more than a complete adaptation to the environment; but
the environment is constantly changing, so perfection can
never be more than transitory. William Somerset
Maugham
- Trifles make perfection,
and perfection is no trifle. Michelangelo
PERFUME- Chemical
warfare. Anon.
PESSIMIST- One who has
been intimately acquainted with an optimist. Elbert
Hubbard
PESSIMIST- One who,
when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both. Anon.
PHARMACIST- The man in
the white coat who stands behind the counter selling
cosmetics and watches. Anon.
PHILOSOPHER- Adults
who persist in asking childish questions. Isaiah
Berlin
- A blind man in a dark room
looking for a black cat which isn't there. Lord Bowen
- One you never go to for
advice. Eugene E. Brussell
- A person who will not
believe what he sees because he is too busy speculating
about what he does not see. La Bovier de Fontenelle
- One who contradicts other
philosophers. William James
- People who talk about
something they don't understand, and make you think it's
your fault. Anon.
PHILOSOPHY -
Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. Franklin
P. Adams
- The common sense of the
next century. Henry Ward Beecher
- (Teaches) us to bear with
equanimity the misfortune of our neighbors. Oscar
Wilde
- Any systematic scheme of
thought which allows you to be unhappy intelligently. Anon.
PLATITUDE- An
observation that is too true to be good. Max Gralnick
PLATONICLOVE-
The name given to the period between the first look and
the first kiss. Anon.
PLEASURE- The bait of
sin. Plato
POET- A worthless,
shiftless chap whose songs adorn the libraries of...
shopkeepers... one hundred years after the chap has died
of alnutrition. Elbert Hubbard
- (Those who) utter great and
wise things which they do not themselves understand. Plato
- The mysteries of the
irrational perceived through rational words. Vladimir
Nabokov
POLITICIAN- One who
thinks twice before saying nothing. Anon.
- One who has a good memory
and hopes other people haven't. Anon.
POLITICS- Practical
politics consists in ignoring facts. Henry Adams
POPULARITY- The
capacity for listening sympathetically when men boast of
their wives and women complain of their husbands. Henry
Louis Mencken
PRINCE- Those who have
long hands and many ears. GermanProverb
PRODIGY- A child who
plays the piano when he ought to be in bed. John B.
Morton
- A child who is just as
smart at four as he will be at forty. Anon.
PROFESSOR- A man who
avoids reality by teaching in a college. Muriel Cohen
PROGRESS- What we call
progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another. Havelock
Ellis
PROVERBS- The wisdom
of the streets. William G. Benham
- A short sentence based on
long experience. Miguel de Cervantes
PSYCHIATRIST - A
doctor who tells you what everybody knows in language
nobody can understand. John Proctor
PSYCHOANALYSIS- A
wonderful discovery... Makes quite simple people feel
they're complex. Samuel N. Behrman
- Confession without
absolution. Gilbert Keith Chesterton
PUBLIC OFFICE- The
last refuge of the incompetent. Boise Penrose
PUBLIC RELATIONS-
Hiring someone who knows what he is doing to convince the
public that you know what you are doing. Hyman Maxwell
Berston
PUBLISHER- A smart
merchant who takes a block of spruce, slices it into 500
sheets, sprays ink on it, and sells it at $5.00 a copy. Leonard
L. Levinson
PUN- Two strings of
thought tied with an acoustic knot. Arthur Koestler
QUESTION - Something
that ignorant men raise which wisemen answered a thousand
years ago. Adapted fromJohann W. Goethe
- The "silly
question" is the first intimation of some totally
new development. Alfred North Whitehead
QUOTATIONS - The act
of repeating erroneously the words of another. Ambrose
Bierce
- The parole of literary men
all over the world. Samuel Johnson
- Something that somebody
said that seemed to make sense at the time. Leonard L.
Levinson
- Scraps of learning. Edward
Young
- Something that exists only
to better express yourself. Anon.
RADICAL- A
conservative out of a job. Anon.
READ- Some read to
think, these are rare; some to write,these are common;
and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
Charles Caleb Colton
READING- Reading means
borrowing. Georg C. Lichtenberg
- Thinking with a strange
head instead of with one's own. Arthur Schopenhauer
REALISM- What men do,
and not what they ought to do. Francis Bacon
REALIST- A man who
insists on making the same mistakes his grandfather did. Benjamin
Disraeli
- Somebody who thinks the
world is simple enough to be understood. It isn't. Donald
Westlake
REALITY- Atoms and
empty space. Democritus
REBELLION- Creation-
the revolt against nothingness. Jose Ortega y Gasset
REFORM- Every reform
was once a private opinion. Ralph Waldo Emerson
RELATIVES- Persons who
live too near and die too seldom. Anon.
RELIGION- A derivative
of the more primitive instincts. Sigmund Freud
REVIEWERS- He who
would write and can't write. James Russell Lowell
REVOLUTION- The
language of the unheard. Martin Luther King
- (An) effort to get rid of a
bad government and set up a worse. Oscar Wilde
REVOLUTIONIST- Every
revolutionist ends up either by becoming an oppressor or
a heretic. Albert Camus
RESEARCH- When I'm
doing what I don't know (what) I'm doing. Wernher von
Braun
RESPONSIBILITY- The
price of greatness. Winston S. Churchill
REPUTATION- I am
indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense,
and my expense is equal to my wishes. Edward Gibbon
ROMANCE- In love, one
first deceives oneself and then others and that is what
is called romance. John L. Balderston
- There is no such thing...
in our day, women have become too brilliant; nothing
spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the
woman. Oscar Wilde
RUDENESS- The weak
man's imitation of strength.Eric Hoffer
SATIRIST- A man who
discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says
them about other people. Peter McArthur
SCHOLAR- There are
only two kinds... those who love ideas and those who hate
them. Emile Chartier
- One who wraps himself in
quotations. Anon.
SCIENCE- Practical
philosophy. Rene Descartes
- Nothing more than a
refinement of everyday thinking. Albert Einstein
- The topography of
ignorance. Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Trained and organized
common sense. Thomas Henry Huxley
- The discovery of identity
amidst diversity. William S. Jevons
- Science is always wrong -it
never solves a problem without creating ten more. George
Bernard Shaw
- A cemetery of dead ideas. Miguel
de Unamuno
- A collection of successful
recipes. Paul Valery
SCIENTIST- There are
two classes, those who want to know, and do not care
whether others think they know or not, and those who do
not much care about knowing, but care very greatly about
being reputed as knowing. Samuel Butler
SAFETY- The best
safety lies in fear. William Shakespeare
SAILOR- (Those who)
are nearest to death and the farthest from God. Thomas
Fuller
SCOUNDREL- Every man
over forty. George Bernard Shaw
SCULPTURE- An art that
takes away superfluous material. Michelangelo
SEA- A fluid world. Charles
Caleb Colton
SECRET- Something
three people keep if two of them are dead. Anon.
SECURITY- An
invitation to indolence. Rod McKuen
SELFISHNESS- The
dynamo of our economic system... which may range from
mere petty greed to admirable types of self-expression. Felix
Frankfurter
SELF-LOVE- The
beginning of a lifelong romance. Oscar Wilde
SELF-RESPECT- The
secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious. Henry
Louis Mencken
SEMINAR - A place
where you can learn in three hours what it takes a
professor three months to teach. Richard Evarts
SEX (LOVE)- The
pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the
expense damnable. Lord Chesterfield
- Grandmother called it a
"sin"; mother called it an "affair";
daughter calls it an "experience." Sydney J.
Harris
SEXES (MEN AND WOMEN)-
The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs
a clever woman to manage a fool. Rudyard Kipling
SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD
(1856-1950)- A playwright who knew all of the
answers, but none of the questions. Harold Hobson
SILENCE- The fence
around wisdom. Hebrew Proverb
- The most perfect expression
of scorn. George Bernard Shaw
- Conversation with a bore. Anon.
SIN- Ignorance in
motion. Ian Aird
SKEPTIC- One who
laughs in order not to weep. Adapted from Anatole
France
- Not one who doubts, but one
who examines. Charles A. Sainte-Beauve
SKEPTICISM- The first
step on the road to philosophy. Denis Diderot
- An exercise, not a life. George
Santayana
SLANG- Language that
takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work.
Carl Sandburg
SMILE- The whisper of
a laugh. Anon.
SNOBBERY- The pride of
those who are not sure of their position. Berton
Braley
SOCIALISM- A sincere,
sentimental, beneficent theory, which has but one
objection... it will not work. Elbert Hubbard
- A system which is workable
only in heaven, where it isn't needed, and in hell, where
they've got it. Cecil Palmer
SOCIETY- One polished
horde formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and the
bored. Adapted from Lord Byron
- The painful ceremony of
receiving and returning visits. Tobias G. Smollett
- A bore. But to be out of it
is simply a tragedy. Oscar Wilde
SOLEMNITY- The shield
of idiots. Charles de Montesquieu
- A trick of the body to hide
the faults of the mind. La Rochefoucauld
SOLITUDE
- Often the best society. William
G. Benham
- A good place to visit, but
a bad place to stay. Josh Billings
SON- Your son at five
is your master, at ten your slave, at fifteen your
double, and after that, your friend or foe, depending on
his bringing up. Abraham Hasdai
SORROW- A form of
self-pity. John Fitzgerald Kennedy
SPANKING- Punishment
that takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner
to the seat of memory. Will Durant
- Applause backwards. Anon.
SPECIALIST- A man who
knows more and more about less and less. William J.
Mayo
SPECTATOR - People who
are interested in something they are not interested in at
all. Peter Altenberg
SPEECH- Like a love
letter. Ideally, you should begin by not knowing what you
are going to say, and end by not knowing what you've
said. William A. Jowitt
- Speech was given to the
ordinary sort of men to communicate their mind, but to
wise men whereby toconceal it. Robert South
SPORTS- When a man
wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport; when the
tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity. George
Bernard Shaw
STATESMAN- A dead
politician. Anon.
STATISTICIAN- An
average guy. Harold Coffin
SUCCESS- The test is
simple and infallible. Are you able to save money? James
J. Hill
- To know how to wait. Joseph
de Maistre
- Success depends on three
things: who says it, what he says, how he says it; and of
these three things, what he says is the least important.
John Morley
- (A state that) covers a
multitude of blunders. George Bernard Shaw
- The end of hope. Anon.
- The real succeeders in life
are the losers who keep trying. Anon.
SUFFERING- A sure sign
that you are alive. Elbert Hubbard
SUICIDE- The simplest
of human rights. Charlotte P. Gilman
SYMPATHY- What you
give to someone when you don't want to loan him money. Anon.
TACT- The rare ability
to keep silent while two friends are arguing, and you
know both of them are wrong. Hugh Allen
- A subtle form of flattery. Max
Gralnick
- The art of convincing
people that they know more than you do. Raymond
Mortimer
TALENT- To do easily
what is difficult for others. Henry F. Amiel
TALMUD- The
Catholicism of the Jews. Heinrich Heine
TAXES- To create a
class of persons who do not labor, to take from those who
do labor the produce of that labor, and to give it to
those who do not labor. William Cobbett
- Simple robbery. Hillel
- The price we pay for
civilized society. Oliver Wendell Holmes
TAX INVESTIGATOR-
Someone more concerned with how you spend your money than
how the government spends it. Anon.
TEACHER- The child's
third parent. Hyman Maxwell Berston
- The man who can make hard
things easy. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- He who can, does. He who
cannot, teaches. George Bernard Shaw
TELEVISION- A device
that permits people who haven't anything to do to watch
people who can't do anything. Fred Allen
- Chewing gum for the eyes. John
Mason Brown
- A medium of entertainment
which permits millions of people to listen to the same
joke at thesame time and yet remain lonesome. Thomas
Stearns Eliot
- The visual cliche . Anon.
TEXAS- The state where
you look the most to see the least. Anon.
THANKSGIVINGDAY-
A national holiday on which all the people who during the
past year have survived earthquake,fire, housemaid's knee
and death, overeat and thus thank God for his favoritism.
Elbert Hubbard
THEATER- A place where
you can hear every variety of cough. Rose Mortinson
THEOLOGIAN- (Those
whose) opinion of themselves is so great that they behave
as if they were already in heaven. Desiderius Erasmus
THEOLOGY- Pathology
hidden from itself. Ludwig A. Feuerbach
- The effort to explain the
unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing. Henry
Louis Mencken
- Reflection upon the reality
of worship and an explication of it. As such it is a
rational affair ...faith seeking to understand. Albert
C. Outler
- The study of nothing. Thomas
Paine
- A blind man in a dark room
searching for a black cat which isn't there"and
finding it. Anon.
THEORY- A hunch with a
college education. J. A. Carter
- An imperfect generalization
caught up by a predisposition. James A. Froude
- Something usually murdered
by facts. Anon.
THIEF- Opportunity
makes a thief. Francis Bacon
- One who considers he is
honest if he has no chance to steal. Hebrew Proverb
THINKERS- The thinker
looks for a universal truth that will help explain unique
events. Eric Hoffer
- One who makes others think.
Elbert Hubbard
THINKING- The greatest
torture in the world for most people. Luther Burbank
- What a great many people
think they are doing when they are merely rearranging
their prejudices. William James
- Only a flash between two
long nights, but this flash is everything. Henry
Poincare
TIME- The greatest
innovator. Francis Bacon
- A River without Banks. Marc
Chagall
TIPS- A sum of money
that is more than you can afford and less than the waiter
expected. Cynic's Cyclopaedia
TOBACCO- A woman is
only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke. Rudyard
Kipling
- An Indian weed. Walter
Scott
TONGUE- The neck's
enemy. ArabianProverb
TOWN- A place where
everybody knows whose check is good and whose wife isn't.
Jack Sterling
TRAGEDY- The
difference between what is and what might have been. Alfred
North Whitehead
- In this world there are
only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants,
and the other is getting it. Oscar Wilde
- Retirement without a hobby.
Anon.
TRAVELLER- If you will
be a traveller, have always... two bags very full, that
is one of patience and another of money. John Florio
- A traveller must have the
back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a
dog to flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set
before him, the ear of a merchant to hear all and say
nothing.
Thomas Nashe
TRUMAN, HARRY S.
(1884-1974)- (Truman was) right on all the big
things, wrong on most of the little ones. Sam Rayburn
- I... never hesitated to do
the things I thought necessary, regardless of whether
they were popular or not. Harry S. Truman
TRUTH- When you have
eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth. Arthur Conan Doyle
- The one thing that nobody
will believe. George Bernard Shaw
- The rarest quality in an
epitaph. Henry David Thoreau
UNIVERSE- A crank
machine. Alfonso the Wise
- An immense and unbroken
chain of cause and effect. Paul H. d'Holbach
- The universe is not
hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply
indifferent. John Holmes
- One of God's thoughts.
Johann C. Schiller
- The God's laboratory. Adapted
from Ilya R. Prigogine
- An intelligent design. William
F. Swann
- An intelligence test. Heathcote
Williams
UNIVERSITY- A place
where... men send their sons who have no aptitude for
business. Elbert Hubbard
VAGABOND- The
vagabond, when rich, is called a tourist. Paul Richard
VIRTUE- Wisdom is
knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. David S.
Jordan
- Consists, not in abstaining
from vice, but in not desiring it. George Bernard Shaw
- Insufficient temptation. George
Bernard Shaw
VOLTAIRE (1694-1778)-
The prince of buffoons. Thomas B. Macaulay
- One of those heroes who
liked better to excite martyrs than be one. Horace
Walpole
VULGARITY- The conduct
of others. Oscar Wilde
WAGNER, RICHARD
(1813-1883) - My destiny is solitude, and my life is
work. Richard Wagner
WAR- The most
successful of our cultural traditions. Robert Ardrey
- The science of destruction.
J. S. Abbott
- A disaster to the soldier;
to the general a spectacle. Isaac Goldberg
- A method of killing people.
George Bernard Shaw
WASHINGTON, GEORGE
(1732-1799)- He errs as other men do, but errs with
integrity. Thomas Jefferson
WEALTH- The savings of
many in the hands of one. Eugene V. Debs
- A thousand dollars a day -
and expenses. Pierre Lorillard
- Any income that is at least
$100 more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's
husband. Henry Louis Mencken
WHISKEY- I like it, I
always did, and that is the reason I never use it. Robert
E. Lee
WICKEDNESS- Anything
the old cannot enjoy. Anton Chekhov
WIDOW- One who is
sadder but wiser. Anon.
WIFE- One who is sorry
she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again. Henry
Louis Mencken
- A man's wife is his
compromise with the illusion of his first sweetheart. George
Jean Nathan
- No woman is a wife who is
not a mother too. WelshProverb
- One who knows everything
except why she married you. Anon.
WILDE, OSCAR (1854-1900)-
The one person I would like to meet in heaven. George
Bernard Shaw
WILSON, WOODROW (1856-1924)
- A very adroit... (but not forceful) hypocrite. Theodore
Roosevelt
- No man ever more fully
exemplified the adage that the pen is mightier than the
sword. Mark Sullivan
WISDOM- The sad smile
with which we recognize our own motives in a fool. John
Ciardi
- Pretending to know and
believe more than we really do. William Congreve
- Knowing what to do next. Herbert
Hoover
- Knowing what to overlook. William
James
WIT- The salt of
conversation, not the food. William Hazlitt
WOMAN- Largely the
product of the romantic imagination of men. Charles
Angoff
- (She) inspires us to great
things - and prevents us accomplishing them. Alexander
Dumas
- Picturesque protests
against the mere existence of common sense. Oscar
Wilde
- A sweetheart is milk, a
bride is butter, and a wife - is cheese. Ludwig Boerne
WOMEN- Women have two
weapons - cosmetics and tears. Napoleon 1
- Two types of women: those
who wear well and those who wear little. Walter
Streightiff
- Sphinxes without secrets. Oscar
Wilde
- One who never opens her
mouth unless she has nothing to say. Anon.
WONDER - Implies the
desire to learn. Aristotle
- To begin to understand. Jose
Ortega y Gasset
WORDS- The opiate of
the intellectuals. Leo Rosten
WORK- Work is work if
you're paid to do it, and it's pleasure if you pay to be
allowed to do it. Finley Peter Dunne
WORLD- I count it not
an inn but a hospital, and a place not to live, but to
die in. Thomas Browne
WRITERS- A prostitute.
First I did it to please myself, then ... my friends, and
finally I did it for money. Ferenc Molnar
- To become immortal our
great writers first have to die of hunger. Moritz
Saphir
- When I want to read a book
I write one. Benjamin Disraeli
- The only respectable work a
girl can do in bed. Victor Fredericks
WRITING- Writing is
busy idleness. Johann W. Goethe
- Merely the dregs of
experience. Franz Kafka
- The clumsy attempt to find
symbols for the wordlessness. John Steinbeck
YAWN- Honesty
undisguised. Anon.
YOUTH- The ability to
see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty
never grows old. Franz Kafka
ZOO- A place which
prevents people from getting at the animals. Anon.
bnormal -
Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and
conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal. Ambrose
Bierce