Tag Archives: humor

The Devil’s Dictionary: Fanatic

“Fanatic, n. One who overestimates the importance of convictions and undervalues the comfort of an existence free from the impact of addled eggs and dead cats upon the human periphery.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.

H.L. Mencken on Historians and Historiography

“Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.”

H.L. Mencken

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

The Devil’s Dictionary: Abasement

“Abasement, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000

Robert Frost on Our Financial Institutions

“A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back again when it begins to rain.”

Robert Frost

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Rotten Reviews: The Human Comedy

“Alas! Interested though one is in the attempt, it remains to say that the result is not very happy…there is scarcely a trace of Saroyan’s characteristic charm of manner, and indeed his art of inspired artlessness now falls extremely flat. This, in short, is an excessively simple and very, very sentimental little concoction.”

Times Literary Supplement

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

George Santayana on Advertising

“Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.”

George Santayana

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Rotten Reviews: Anton Chekhov

“If you were to ask me what Uncle Vanya is about, I would say about as much as I can take.”

Robert Garland, Journal American

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

Clarence Darrow on History

“History repeats itself; that’s one of the things that’s wrong with history.”

Clarence Darrow

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

George Bernard Shaw on the Dismal Science and Its Practitioners

“If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”

George Bernard Shaw

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Mark Twain on Civil Liberties

“In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.”

Mark Twain

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.