There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.

Kindness n: A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.

Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic

TRUCE, n. Friendship.

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.

MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.