RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain" - that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain" - that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him.
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.
K, n. A consonant; originally precisely that of our H, but altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of [one of two lofty columns in] the great temple of Jarute.
Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an "old man". Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an "old" book.
Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!
Learning -the kind of ignorance affected by (and affecting) civilized races, as distinguished from ignorance, the sort of learning incurred by savages. See nonsense.
MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable . . . Commonly Saxon - that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.