• Pray To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

• Faith Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

• Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.

• Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum

• Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

• In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

• Barometer, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

• Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

• Calamities are of two kinds misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

• Cabbage A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

• Brain an apparatus with which we think we think.

• Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

• Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

• To be positive To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

• There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.

• Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.

• Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

• The covers of this book are too far apart.

• The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

• Painting The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

• Quotation, n The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.