Explore Quotations, Proverbs & Sayings

«LAUREL, n. The _laurus_, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had influence at court. (_Vide supra._)»

«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»

«Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.»

«YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.But yesterday I should have thought me blest To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak Of middle life and look adown the bleak And unfamiliar foreslope to the West, Where solemn shadows all the land invest And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest. Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame To stay the shadow on the dial's face At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name I chide aloud the little interspace Disparting me from Certitude, and fain Would know the dream and vision ne'er again. --Baruch ArnegriffIt is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven doctors.»

«CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the disgrace before meat. _Capital Punishment_, a penalty regarding the justice and expediency of which many worthy persons --including all the assassins --entertain grave misgivings.»

«HALF, n. One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussion arose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the negative. Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a viper.»

«FREEDOM, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell; On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell.She screams whenever monarchs meet, And parliaments as well, To bind the chains about her feet And toll her knell.And when the sovereign people cast The votes they cannot spell, Upon the pestilential blast Her clamors swell.For all to whom the power's given To sway or to compel, Among themselves apportion Heaven And give her Hell. --Blary O'Gary»

«TURKEY, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.»

«PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could supply --the sword, the spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of propulsion.»

«ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly (_Musca maledicta_). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us. Two of the science's most illustrious expounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we learn (_L'Histoire generale des animaux_ and _A History of Animated Nature_) that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.»