Am tot cugetat eu dupa ce am terminat de lecturat intr-un hohot neintrerupt aceasta carte, cum se cuvine sa scriu despre ea. Ar ajunge sa spui ca te prapadesti de ras? Ca uneori hohotul moare sufocat de un val subit de jena si rusine cand iti recunosti si tu partea „diabolica”? Sau ca fiecare definitie este un izvor de idei si de inspiratie?

Nu stiu ce sa spun. Pur si simplu. Si stiu ca nu se face, ca nu se cade, dar iata ca eu o fac.
Va vorbesc despre carte in citate! 🙂

ADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.
ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
AMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.
APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a
solution to the labor question.
APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.
BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a
husband.
CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be
kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives
each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought
not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his
due.
CONGRATULATION, n. The civility of envy.
CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit
without individual responsibility.
CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody
tries to please him.
CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The
desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one
of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
DANCE, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably
with arms about your neighbor’s wife or daughter. There are many
kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two
sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously
innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.
DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men
prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk
with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then
point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.
DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period
is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day
improper – the former devoted to sins of business, the latter
consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity
overlap.
DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number – just enough
to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to
embarrass the choice.
DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch
the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship. This Divine Being in
some of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection
of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog
is a survival – an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin,
yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long,
sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means
wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned
with a look of tolerant recognition.
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in
me.
ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the
color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color
appear white.
EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the
heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge
of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.
ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of
repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
Byron, who recovered long enough to call it „entuzy-muzy,” had a
relapse, which carried him off – to Missolonghi.
ERUDITION, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
FASHION, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but
only one in foul.
GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.
HAPPINESS, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the
misery of another.
HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another’s
superiority.
HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant,
which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly
fools.
HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the
plate.
INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for
their mutual destruction.
LAUGHTER, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the
features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious
and, though intermittent, incurable.
LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of
the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only
among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous
nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from
its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the
physician than to the patient.
MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence;
not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by
the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority;
in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad
by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For
illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no
firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any
madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead
of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he
may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum
and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many
thoughtless spectators.
MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male
of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The
genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he
thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His
chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own
species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to
infest the whole habitable earh and Canada.
MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a
master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
MONDAY, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of
the heart.
NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but
Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.
OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the
Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of
the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating,
which they are pleased to call „war” and „commerce.” These, also, are
the principal industries of the Orient.
OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,
including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and
everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by
those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and
is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a
blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof – an
intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is
hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.
OVEREAT, v. To dine.
OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries
who want to go fishing.
PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf
of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of
conscience in demanding it.
QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain
in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.
REFLECTION, n. An action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view
of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the
perils that we shall not again encounter.
REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; as an elderly maiden’s hand
in marriage, to a rich and handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a
rich corporation, by an alderman; absolution to an impenitent king, by
a priest, and so forth. Refusals are graded in a descending scale of
finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the
refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by
some casuists the refusal assentive.
RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A
Tartar Emetic.