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Being a collection of quotable quotes, which seek to redefine, or perhaps, only to clarify the meaning behind everyday english words.

The index below provides links to the various terms being defined, and clicking on the hyperlink in a definition will return you to the index.

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Ability
The ability to conceal one's own ability.
Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Abstainer
A person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce
The kind of man you wouldn't want to drink with even if he did.
George Jean Nathan

Absurdity
A statement of belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Ambrose Bierce

Action
The last recourse of those who know not how to dream.
Oscar Wilde

Advertising Agency
Eighty-five percent confusion and fifteen percent commission.
Fred Allen

Advice
Something delicately poised between cliché and indiscretion.
Archbishop Robert Runcie

Alcoholic
Anyone you don't like who drinks more than you do.
Dylan Thomas

Ambition
An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living, and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose Bierce
The last refuge of the failure.
Oscar Wilde

America
A country where you can buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for a dollar, and use it up in two weeks.
John Barrymore
A country that doesn't know where it's going but is going to break the speed limit to get there.
Laurence Peter
The place where you can say what you think without even thinking.
Anon.

Amusement
The happiness of those who cannot think.
Alexander Pope

Appeasers
People who believe that if you keep throwing steaks at a tiger, he'll become a vegetarian.
Heywood Brown

Archbishop
A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
H.L. Mencken

Army
What you join to see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.
Woody Allen

Art
What sells.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Artist
Someone who must know how to convince others of the truth of his lies.
Pablo Picasso

Assassination
The most extreme form of censorship.
George Bernard Shaw

Atheism
A crutch for those who can't stand the reality of God.
Tom Stoppard

Atheist
Somebody with no invisible means of support.
John Buchan

Autobiography
Unrivalled vehicles for telling the truth - about others.
Philip Guedalla

Baby
Nine months interest on a small deposit.
Brian Johnston

Bachelor
A man who never made the same mistake once.
Anon.

Bachelors
People who know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be married too.
H.L. Mencken

Bastard
Lower class love child.
Tina Spencer Knott

Beauty
What's in the eye of the beerholder.
W.C. Fields

Bed
The poor man's opera.
Aldous Huxley

Behavioural Psychology
The Science of pulling habits out of rats.
Douglas Busch

Belgium
A country invented by the British to annoy the French.
Charles de Gaulle

Bible, The
The number one book of the ages, written by a committee.
Louis B. Mayer

Bigamy
A case of two rites making a wrong.
Anon.
Having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same.
Erica Jong

Bigot
One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
Ambrose Bierce

Bolshevism
Czarism in overalls.
George Jean Nathan

Book-learning
The dunce's derisive term for all knowledge that transcends his own impertinent ignorance.
Ambrose Bierce

Book Reviewers
Little old ladies of both sexes.
John O'Hara

Books
Funny little portable pieces of thought.
Susan Sontag
What they make films out of, for TV.
Robert Morley

Bore
A fellow who can change the subject back to his topic of conversation faster than you can change it back to yours.
Laurence Peter
A man who, when you ask him how he is, he tells you.
Bert Leston Taylor

Boredom
A vital consideration for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Bertrand Russell

Boxing
A lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.
Muhammad Ali

Boy Scout Troop
A lot of boys dressed as jerks, led by a jerk dressed as a boy.
Shelley Berman

Brain
Something that starts working the moment you're born and doesn't stop until you stand up to speak in public.
George Jessel

Brass Bands
Things which are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.
Thomas Beecham

Bravery
Being the only one who knows you're afraid.
Franklin P. Jones

British Education
The best in the world - if you can survive it.
Peter Ustinov

British Parliament
The longest running farce in the West End.
Cyril Smith

Bureaucracy
What defends the status quo long after the quo has lost its status.
Laurence Peter

Cambridge
The romantic dream of those who never went there.
Malcolm Muggeridge

Cannibal
Someone fed up with people.
Anon.

Capital
Dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.
Karl Marx

Capital Punishment
Our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.
Orrin Hatch

Career
A wonderful thing, but you can't snuggle up to it on a cold night.
Marilyn Monroe
Like the dictionary says, "A headlong rush, usually downhill".
Michael Bentine

Caricature
The tribute mediocrity pays to genius.
Oscar Wilde

Celibacy
Not an inherited characteristic.
Nigel Rees

Censorship
A more depraving and corrupting practice than anything pornography can produce.
Tony Smythe

Certainty
Being mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce

Chaos
The score upon which reality is written.
Henry Miller

Charm
The ability to get the answer yes without having asked the question.
Albert Camus

Cheese
Milk's leap towards immortality.
Clifton Fadiman

Childhood
A series of happy delusions.
Sydney Smith
The time of life when one makes faces in a mirror. Middle age is when the mirror gets even!
Mickey Mansfield

Chivalry
A man's inclination to protect a woman from every man but himself.
Brian Johnston

Christian
One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book, admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour.
Ambrose Bierce

Christianity
Possibly a good idea, if somebody tried it.
George Bernard Shaw

City
Not a concrete jungle, but a human zoo.
Desmond Morris
Millions of people being lonely together.
Henry Thoreau

Civil Service
A self-perpetuating oligarchy.
Lord Armstrong

Civilisation
A race between education and catastrophe.
H.G. Wells

Cleanliness
What is next to impossible.
Audrey Austin

Clue
What the police find when they fail to find what they're looking for.
J.B. Morton

Cocaine
God's way of telling you you're making too much money.
Robin Williams

Comedy
A funny way of being serious.
Peter Ustinov

Commendation
The tribute we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own.
Ambrose Bierce

Committee
A cul-de-sac sown which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
John A. Lincon
A group of people who keep minutes and waste hours.
Milton Berle

Common Sense
The collection of prejudices acquired by the age eighteen.
Albert Einstein

Communism
Socialism with electricity.
Vladimir Lenin

Compliance
The path of least persistence.
Gordon Baker

Compromise
The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.
Ludwig Erhard
What used to mean half a loaf is better than no bread, but among modern statesmen it seems to mean half a loaf is better than the whole loaf.
G.K. Chesterton

Conceit
A polite form of self-imposed torture.
Henry Miller

Conclusion
What you reach when you get tired of thinking.
Martin Fischer

Conference
A gathering together of important people who single can de nothing, but together decide that nothing can be done.
Fred Allen

Conscience
What your mother told you before you were six years old.
Brock Chisholm
An anticipation of the opinions of others.
Henry Taylor

Conservative
Someone who believes in reform, but not now.
Mort Sahl
A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce
Someone who demands a square deal for the rich.
David Frost

Conservatism
The worship of dead revolutions.
Clinton Rossiter

Contraceptives
Items that should be carried on every conceivable occasion.
Spike Milligan

Contract
An agreement that's binding only on the weaker party.
Frederick Sawyer

Convictions
More dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Correct English
The slang of the prigs who write history and essays.
George Eliot

Crank
A man with a new idea - until it succeeds.
Mark Twain

Crazy Pavement
A walking area that's not all it's cracked up to be.
Anon.

Creator, The
A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.
H.L. Mencken

Cricket
A game invented by religious fundamentalists to explain the idea of eternal hell to non-Christian indigenous peoples of the former British Empire.
Joe O'Connor

Cult
Not enough people to make a minority.
Robert Altman

Curiosity
Little more than another name for hope.
J.C. Hare

Cynic
A sentimentalist afraid of himself.
Lambert Jefferies
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce

Death
What politically correct doctors call a Negative Patient Outcome
John Koski
A slave's freedom.
Nikki Giovanni

Début
The first time a young girl is seen drunk in public.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Decision
What a man makes when he can't get anyone to serve on a committee.
Fletcher Knebel

Democracy
An institution in which the whole is equal to the scum of its parts.
Keith Preston
The worse form of government - except for all the others.
Winston Churchill

Diplomacy
The art of saying "Nice doggie" 'till you can find a rock.
Wynn Catlin
To do and say, The nastiest thing in the nicest way.
Isaac Goldberg

Diplomat
A person who thinks twice before saying nothing.
Fred Sawyer

Dolphins
Animals that are so intelligent that, within a few weeks of captivity, they can train a man to stand on the edge of their pool and throw them food three times a day.
Hal Roach

Draft, The
White people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they stole from red people.
James Rado

Drama Critic
A person who surprises the playwright by informing him what he really meant.
Wilson Mizner
A man who leaves no turn unstoned.
George Bernard Shaw

Drunk
An alcoholic who doesn't have to go to all those boring old meetings.
Jackie Gleason

Ecstasy
A drug so strong it makes white people think that they can dance.
Lenny Henry

Education
A method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.
Laurence Peter

Election
When the air is full of speeches...and vice versa.
Peter Eldin

Eloquence
The ability to describe Kim Basinger without using one's hands.
Michael Harkness

Englishman
Someone with all the qualities of a poker, except its occasional warmth.
Daniel O'Connell

Epigram
A platitude on its night out.
Philip Guedalla

ESP
Esentially Silly People
Cleveland Amory

Esprit de Corps
That typically English characteristic for which there is no English translation.
Frank Adcock

"Et Cetera"
The expression that makes people think you know more than you do.
Herbert Prochnow

Etiquette
The art of making company feel at home...when you wish they were.
Henry Youngman

Eunuch
A man who had his works cut out for him.
Robert Byrne

Executive
An ulcer with authority.
Fred Allen

Existentialism
A philosophy with no future.
Audrey Austin

Existentialist
Someone who swims with the tide - but faster.
Quentin Crisp

Expert
Someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made, but in a very narrow field.
Niels Bohr

Extravagance
The way the other fellow spends his money.
Harry Thompson
Anything you buy that is of no earthly use to your wife.
Franklin Adams

Faith
Not wanting to know what is true.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Fanaticism
Re-doubling your effort when you've forgotten your aim.
George Santayana

Fascist
Anyone who disagrees with you.
John Koski

Feminist
A woman, usually ill-favoured, in whom the film-making instinct has replaced the maternal one.
Barry Humphries

Fidelity
Putting all your eggs in one bastard.
Dorothy Parker

Flatterer
Someone who says things to your face that he wouldn't dare say behind your back.
Gorge Millington

Flattery
A bit like a cigarette - all right as long as you don't inhale.
Adlai Steveson

Flirtation
An expression of considered desire coupled with an admission of its impracticality.
Marya Mannes
Attention without intention.
Max O'Rell

Flirts
Women whose favourite man is...the next one.
Justin Peters

Florida
God's waiting room.
Glenn le Grice

Forgiveness
A stratagem to throw an offender off his guard and catch him red-handed in his next offence.
Ambrose Bierce

Friends
God's apology for relations.
Hugh Kingsmill

Genius
A man who can re-wrap a new shirt and not have any pins left over.
Dino Levi
One per cent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison

Gentleman
A patient wolf.
Henrietta Tiarks
Somebody who need not necessarily _know_ Latin, but he should at least have forgotten it.
Brander Mathews

Goats
Sheep from broken homes, according to Liberals.
Malcolm Bradbury

God
Operationally, somebody who's beginning to resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat.
Sir Julian Huxley

Good reviews
Merely stays of execution.
Dustin Hoffman

Gossip
The art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing left unsaid.
Walter Winchell
When you hear something you like, about someone you don't.
Earl Wilson

Government
The only known vessel that leaks from the top.
James Reston
A necessary evil in its best state; in its worst- an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine

Guilty Conscience
The mother of invention.
Carolyn Wells

Hangover
The wrath of grapes.
Jeffrey Barnard

Happiness
An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
Ambrose Bierce

Harlot
The good time that's been had by all.
Bette Davis

Hell
Other people
Jean-Paul Satre

Heretic
Original thinker.
Ben Elton

Hermaphroditism
An end in itself.
Anon.

Highbrow
A man who can listen to the William Tell overture without thinking of Robin Hood.
Niall Tobin

History
A fable agreed upon.
Napoleon

Hollywood Aristocrats
People who can trace their ancestry all the way back to their parents.
Anon

Honest Politician
Someone who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
Simon Cameron

Hope
The universal liar.
R.G. Ingersoll

Hunting
The most effective way of getting rid of vermin - providing a sufficient number of them fall off their horses and break their necks.
Hugh Leonard

Idealism
The noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
Aldous Huxley

Idealist
One who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
H.L. Mencken

Impatience
Waiting in a hurry.
Sarah Pollard

Impiety
Your irreverence towards my deity.
Ambrose Bierce

"In Conclusion"
The phrase that wakes up the audience.
Herbert Prochnow

Incest
Sibling ribaldry.
John Crosbie

Insanity
A perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.
R.D. Laing

Invention
The mother of necessity.
Thornton Veblen

Irish, The
A race of people who don't know what they want and are prepared to fight to the death to get it.
Sidney Littlewood

Irish Literary Movement
Two writers on speaking terms with one another.

Islamic Moderate
One who believes that the firing squad should be democratically elected.
Henry Kissinger

Journalism
Organised gossip.
Edward Eggleston

Judge
A law student who marks his own examination papers.
H.L. Mencken

Las Vegas
A place with all kinds of gambling devices - roulette tables, slot machines, wedding chapels...
Stanley Davis

Lawyer
Someone who'll do anything to win a case - even tell the truth.
Patrick Murray

Leisure
The opiate of the masses.
Malcolm Muggeridge

Liberal
A conservative who's been arrested.
Thomas Wolfe
A man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.
Robert Frost

Liberals
People who can understand everything but people who don't understand them.
Lenny Bruce

Lies
The basic building blocks of good manners.
Quentin Crisp

Life
The art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Samuel Butler
Post-natal depression.
Nigel Rees
A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare

Literary Movement
Half a dozen writers living in the same country who detest each other cordially.
George Russell

Literature
The question minus the answer.
Roland Barthes

Love
The extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.
Iris Murdoch
Insanity with a collaborator.
Gene Perret
A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Ambrose Bierce

Male, The
A useless piece of flesh at the end of a penis.
Jo Brand
The second strangest sex in the world.
Philip Barry

Man
A reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.
Alexander Hamilton

Manners
What are especially the needs of the plain - the pretty can get away with anything.
Evelyn Waugh

Marriage
A book in which the first chapter is written in poetry and the rest in prose.
Beverly Nichols
The first step towards divorce.
Pamela Mason
A triumph of habit over hate.
Oscar Levant
A licence for two people to insult each other.
Brendan Behan
Neither a verb or a noun, but a sentence.
Revd James Simpson

Marxism
Essentially a product of the bourgeois mind.
J.A. Schumpeter

Masturbation
Sex with someone you love.
Woody Allen

Media
The plural for mediocre.
Rene Saguisag

Medicine
Amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire

Memorandum
Something that's written not so much to inform the reader as to protect the writer.
Dean Acheson

Mercedes Benz
A mechanical device that increases sexual arousal in women.
P.J. O'Rourke

Metaphysics
An attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.
H.L. Mencken

Middle Age
The time of your life when, instead of combing your hair, you start 'arranging' it.
Herbert Kavet

Mind, The
A woman's most erogenous zone.
Raquel Welch

Minor Operation
One performed on someone else.
Anon.

Miracle Drug
Any one that will do what the label says.
Elbert Hubbard

Misogynist
A man who hates women as much as women hate each other.
H.L. Mencken

Model Husband
One who, when his wife is away, washes the dishes - both of them.
Herbert Prochnow

Moderation
A virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.
Henry Kissinger

Modern Art
What happens when painters stop looking at girls, and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
John Ciardi

Modern Novels
Literary creations with a beginning, a muddle and an end.
Philip Larkin

Modesty
The only sure bait to use when you angle for praise.
Lord Chesterfield
The gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
Oliver Herford

Monogamy
What leaves a lot to be desired.
Nigel Rees

Moral Indignation
What is in most cases two per cent moral, forty-eight per cent indignation, and fifty per cent envy.
Vittorio de Sica
Simply the attitude we adopt towards people we dislike.
Oscar Wilde

Murder
Always a mistake; one should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.
Oscar Wilde

Music
Something invented to confirm human loneliness.
Lawrence Durrell

Myths
Someone else's religion.
Caroline Llewellyn

Nagging
The repetition of unpalatable truths.
Edith Summerskill

Narcissist
One who, when he hears thunder, takes a bow.
Louis Safian
Someone better-looking than you are.
Gore Vidal

Nation
A society united by a delusion about its ancestry, and a common hatred of its neighbours.
W.B. Inge

Nationalism
A political ideology which suggests that every little group of human twerps with its own slang, haircut and pet name for God should have its own country as well.
P.J. O'Rourke

Nebraska
Proof that hell is full and the dead walk the earth.
Liz Winston

Necessity
The smotherer of invention.
Lambert Jeffries

Neurotics
People who build castles in the air. (Psychotics live in them, and psychiatrists collect the rent.)
Lord Webb

New Zealand
A country of thrifty million sheep, three million of whom think they're human beings.
Barry Humphries

Newspaper
A device unable to distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.
George Bernard Shaw

Non-conformity
The new conformity.
T.S. Eliot

Nostalgia
A seductive liar.
George Ball

Nymphomaniac
A woman who thinks about sex as much as the average man.
Mignon McLaughliln

Obesity
A widespread ailment.
Joseph Kern

Obscenity
Whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Bertrand Russell

October
One of the peculiarly dangerous months in which to speculate in stocks. The others are January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, November and December.
Mark Twain

Old Age
A very high price to pay for maturity.
Tom Stoppard
Not so bad when you consider the alternative.
Maurice Chevalier
Life's parody
Simone de Beauvoir

Opening night
The night before a play is ready to open.
George Jean Nathan

Opinion Poll
A survey which claims to show what voters are thinking, but which only succeeds in changing their minds.
Miles Kington

Opportunist
A person who strikes a 50-50 deal in such a way that he insists on getting the hyphen as well.
Jack Benny

Optimist
Someone who tells you to cheer up when things are going his way.
Edward Murrow

Oratory
The art of making a loud noise like a deep thought.
Bennett Cerf

Originality
The fine art of remembering what you heard, but forgetting when you heard it.
Laurence Peter

Orgasm
What has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfilment.
Malcolm Muggeridge

Orthodoxy
Yesterday's heresy.
Helen Keller

Outdoors, The
what you must pass through in order to get from your apartment to a taxi-cab.
Fran Lebowitz

Pacifism
Undisguised cowardice.
Adolf Hitler

Pain
The root of knowledge.
Simone Weil

Parties
Fe^tes worse than death.
Barbara Stanwyck

Passport
A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.
Ambrose Bierce

Passport Picture
Something that, when you look like it, it's time to go home.
Erma Bombeck

Patriotism
An arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
George Jean Nathan
The conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
George Bernard Shaw

Patriots
People who always talk of dying for their country, but never of killing for it.
Bertrand Russell

Peace
In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
Ambrose Bierce
A continuation of war by other means.
Vo Nguyen Giap

Pedantry
Stupidity that read a book.
Samuel Butler

Pentagon, The
A building in America that has five sides...on every issue.
Hal Roach

Pessimist
A man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.
Elbert Hubbard
A man who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
Robert Lowell
Someone who burns his bridges before he gets to them. v Anon.
A man who thinks that all women are bad. (An optimist is who who hopes they are.)
Chauncey Depey

Philanthropist
A parasite on misery.
George Bernard Shaw

Philosopher
Someone with a problem for every solution.
Robert Zend
Somebody who doesn't care for philosophy.
Blaise Pascal

Philosophy
To the real world what masturbation is to sex.
Karl Marx
Despair's shot at happiness.
Alexander Pope

Pickpockets
The nearest thing I have to a sex life these days.
Rodney Dangerfield

Planned Economy
When everything is included in he plans...except economy.
Carey McWilliams

Platonic Friendship
The interval between the introduction and the first kiss.
Sophie Loeb

Playboy
Somebody who's tall, dark and hands.
Henry Youngman

Poem
What happens when anxiety meets technique.
Laurence Durrell

Politician
A person with whose politics you don't agree. (If you agree with him, he's a statesman.)
David Lloyd George
An animal that can sit on the fence and still keep both ears to the ground.
H.L. Mencken
A fellow who will lay down your life for his country.
Texas Guinan
One who approaches every situation with an open mouth.
Adlai Stevenson

Politicians
People who divide their time between running for office, and running for cover.
Anon.
People who shake your hand before an election, and your confidence after.
Ernie Kovacs

Politics
A Science derived from two words: "poli" meaning many, and "tics" meaning small bloodsucking insects.
Chris Clayton

Poll
Where people come to their census.
Anon.

Ponder
To arrive at a stupid conclusion slowly.
Herbert Prochnow

Poverty
Something that's very good in poetry but very bad in the house.
Henry Ward Beecher

Power
The ultimate aphrodisiac.
Henry Kissinger

Power Politics
The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.
Ely Culbertson

Praying
When you talk to God. Not to be confused with schizophrenia, which is when He talks back.
Lily Tomlin

Preposition
Something you should never end a sentence with.
Jill Etherington

Prodigy
A child who plays the piano when he ought to be in bed.
J.B. Morton

Professor
One who talks in someone else's sleep.
W.H. Auden

Psychiatrist
A man who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife will ask you for nothing.
Sam Bardell.
A man who goes to a strip show to watch the audience.
Menvyn Stockwood
A sex maniac who failed the practicals.
Milton Berle

Psychoanalysis
Confession without absolution.
G.K. Chesterton
The only disease which mistakes itself for the cure.
Melmoth

Public Opinion
A vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.
W.R. Inge

Publication
The male equivalent of childbirth.
Richard Acland

Pun
The lowest form of wit - unless you thought of it first.
Oscar Levant

Punctuality
The virtue of the bored.
Evelyn Waugh

Puritanism
The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.
H.L. Mencken

Racial Prejudice
A pigment of the imagination.
Nigel Rees

Radical
A man with both feet planted firmly in the air.
F.D. Roosevelt
A person whose left hand doesn't know what his other left hand is doing.
Bernard Rosenberg

Rain
What makes flowers grow - and taxis disappear.
Hal Roach

Reactionary
A somnambulist walking backwards.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Reality
A crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.
Lily Tomlin

Regret
A woman's natural food, upon which she thrives.
Sir Arthur Pinero

Reincarnation
An ideology that's making a comeback.
Simon O'Connor

Religion
A monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
William James
A fashionable substitute for belief.
Oscar Wilde
Excellent stuff for keeping coming people quiet.
Napoleon

Research
The process of going up alleys to see if they're blind.
Marston Bates

Resentment
Resting on one's quarrels.
Vida Shiffer

Resolutions
Cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
Oscar Wilde

Restaurant
Mouth brothels.
Frederic Raphael

Revivals
Shallow things, because they aim at reproducing what never existed, or what has perished with the age that gave them birth.
W.R. Inge

Revolution
A trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.
Tom Stoppard

Revolutionary
Someone who ends up either as an oppressor or a heretic.
Albert Camus

Robbery
The price charged for any article abroad.
J.B. Morton

Rock Journalism
People who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read.
Frank Zappa

Sadness
An appetite that no misfortune can satisfy.
E.M. Cioran

Saint
A dead sinner, revised and edited.
Ambrose Bierce

Satire
The sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
Jonathan Swift.

Satirist
A man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about others.
Peter McArthur

Sausages
Breadcrumbs in battle dress.
Tommy Handley

Scepticism
The beginning of faith.
Oscar Wilde
The first step on the road to philosophy.
Diderot

Science
A collection of successful recipes.
Paul Valéry
The art of systematic over-simplification.
Karl Popper

Self-evaluation
The skin rash of the emotionally insecure.
John MacDonald

Self-respect
The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
H.L. Mencken

Sentimentality
The Bank Holiday of cynicism.
Oscar Wilde

Sex
The invention of a very clever venereal disease.
David Cronenberg
An emotion in motion.
Mae West
The only game that becomes less interesting when played for money.
Anon.
The last important human activity not subject to taxation.
Russell Barker

Shame
The feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.
Carl Sandburg

Silence
One of the hardest arguments to refute.
Josh Billings

Silk
Material invented so women could go naked in clothes.
Muhammad

Smoking
One of the leading causes of statistics.
Fletcher Knebel

Sociology
The study of people who don't need to be studied...by people who do.
E.S. Turner

Solitude
The playfield of Satan.
Vladimir Nabokov

Sorrow
Tranquillity remembered in emotion.
Dorothy Parker

Specialist
A man who knows more and more about less and less.
William James Mayo
A man who knows everything about something and nothing about everything else.
Ambrose Bierce

Spice
The plural of spouse.
Christopher Morley

Spinsterhood
Like death by drowning - a delightful sensation after you cease to struggle.
Edna Ferber

Stability
Having a chip on both shoulders.
Mary Mannion

Statisticians
Those who can go directly from an unwarranted assumption to a preconceived conclusion.
Herbert Prochnow

Statistics
Like a bikini: what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
Aaron Levenstein

Stigma
Something you beat a dogma with.
Philip Guedalla

Style
Knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
Gore Vidal

Success
What's counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.
Emily Dickinson
Delayed failure.
Graham Greene
Failure disguised as money.
Brendan Behan

Survival
The ultimate revenge.
Vincent Browne

Tact
The ability to describe others as they see themselves.
Abraham Lincoln

Tavern
A place where madness is sold by the bottle.
Jonathan Swift

Team Spirit
An illusion that you only glimpse when you win.
Steve Archibald

Tears
A woman's rhetoric.
Joseph Jordan

Television
A device that permits people who haven't anything to do to watch people who can't do anything.
Fred Allen
The longest amateur night in history.
Robert Carson
A medium - because it is neither rare nor well done.
Ernie Kovacs
Where old movies go when they die.
Bob Hope

Thirty
A nice age for a woman - especially if she happens to be forty.
Phyllis Diller

Throne
Only a bench covered with velvet.
Napoleon

Time
What wounds all heels.
Jane Ace

Tip
A small sum of money you give to someone because you're afraid he wouldn't like not being paid for something you haven't asked him to do.
Ann Caesar

Tolerance
The virtue of a man without convictions
G.K. Chesterton

Tyranny
What is always better organised than freedom.
Charles Péguy

Unconventionality
Really the most conventional convention.
R.H. Benson

Undeserved Praise
Satire in disguise.
Alexander Pope

Unhealthy
What thin people call fat people - and vice versa.
Sandra Bergeson

University
What a college becomes when it looses interest in it's students.
John Ciardi
A place where they polish pebbles and dim diamonds.
Sean O'Casey

Vanity
The quicksand of reason.
George Sand
Other people's pride.
Sacha Guitry

Vegetarians
People who look enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.
Finley Peter Dunne

Violence
The repartee of the illiterate.
Alan Brien

Virtue
Only vices in disguise.
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Insufficient temptation.
George Bernard Shaw
Its own disappointment
Philip Moeller

Vocation
Any badly-paid job which someone has taken out of choice.
Mike Barfield

Vulgarity
Simply the conduct of other people
Oscar Wilde.

War
Capitalism with the gloves off.
Tom Stoppard
The national industry of Prussia.
Comte de Mirabeau

Water
What fish fuck in.
W.C. Fields

Wealth
Any income that's at least $100 more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband.
H.L. Mencken

Wedding
The day of a man's life when he realises that he can't face another date with a legal secretary who wants to be a nightclub comedienne.
Henry Youngman

Well-Adjusted
A man whose intake of pep pills overbalances his consumption of tranquillisers just enough to leave him sufficient energy for his weekly visit to the psychiatrist.
Arthur Motley

Westernisation
Big increase in street crime.
John Koski

Wickedness
A myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
Oscar Wilde

Wife
A woman who tries to turn an old rake into a lawn-mower.
Jack Benny

Wisdom
The art of knowing what to overlook.
William James

Wit
The salt of conversation, not the food.
William Hazlitt

Woman
A diet waiting to happen.
Serena Gray

Women
People who should be obscene and not heard.
John Lennon

Words
The great foes of reality.
Joseph Conrad

Work
That which expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
C. Northcote Parkinson
The curse of the drinking classes.
Oscar Wilde

World, The
A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Arlo Guthrie

Worry
Interest paid on trouble before it falls due.
Hal Roach

Writer
Someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people
Thomas Mann

Writing
The process of putting one's obsessions in order.
Jean Grenier

Zeal
A nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.
Ambrose Bierce