Status Updates From The Devil’s Dictionary / Ta...

...an aunt of mine–a good old lady who had brought me up by hand and taught me many wholesome lessons in morality, which in my later life have proved of extreme value. Foremost among these I mention her solemn and oft-repeated injunction never to tell a lie without a definite and specific reason for doing so.

…he finally wrote that he had decided to call the new journal The Lantern…obviously borrowed from M. Rochefort’s famous journal, La Lanterne…the name could hardly be agreeable to Mr. Mortimer’s Imperialist friends…I was delighted to promise, however, that the new paper should resemble the old in one particular: it should be irritatingly disrespectful of existing institutions and exalted personages.

In power upon the emotions nothing, I think, is comparable to a first sight of mountains. To a member of the plains-tribe, born and reared on the flats of Ohio or Indiana, a mountain region was a perpetual miracle.

SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

PATRIOTISM, n. One to whom the interests of part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerers.

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

CHRISTIAN, n One who believes the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

ABORIGINES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. The soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

...in the presence of death reason and philosophy are silent.

…Mr. Dunfer’s most obvious characteristic was a deep-seated antipathy to the Chinese…I ventured faintly to remonstrate Jo. for his unchristian spirit, but he merely explained that there was nothing about Chinamen in the New Testament, and strode away to wreak his displeasure upon his dog, which also, I suppose, the inspired scribes had overlooked.

It was Scepticism apologizing to Truth.

These were conditions favorable to thought, and he was thinking.

Most of the wounded had died of neglect while the right to minister to their wants was in dispute. It is an army regulation that the wounded must wait; the best way to care for them is to win the battle. It must be confessed that victory is a distinct advantage to a man requiring attention, but many do not avail themselves of it.

It was hardly profitable to be curious about guns, which had the trick of the cuttlefish, and the season of observation had been brief.