The Devil's Dictionary

Mercy — an attribute beloved of detected offenders.

Clergyman — a man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.

Pain — an uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

Platitude — the fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-morality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

Houseless — having paid all taxes on household goods.

Acquaintance — a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

Kleptomaniac — a rich thief.

Brain — an apparatus with which we think that we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something.

Deluge — a notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

Reality — the dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.