From THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY:
mad: affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by conformers from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual.
(Compare with the quote from the Australian novelist, Patrick White, I have long used to respond to those who call me mad: “You are mad,” shouted Angus, who had learned to cherish his own limitations as a sure proof of sanity.)
magic: the art of converting superstition into coin.
malefactor: the chief factor in the progress of the human race.
man: 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 invest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
marriage: a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
mausoleum: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
meekness: uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worthwhile.
mercy: an attribute beloved by detected offenders.
mine: belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
Monday: in Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
mythology: the body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
