The point in the heavens directly overhead to a standing man or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though from this view of the matter there was once a considerable dissent among the learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The Horizontalist heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among fides defuncti.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

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As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,
So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.
—Judibras

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. In a republic the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are gradations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.
(also: governing people)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

In the Church of England, the Third Person of the parochial Trinity, the Curate and the Vicar being the other two.
(also: university)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom of an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be judged by the light that the doer had when he performed it.

A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles and the like. The first of these rights was once universally believed to be derived directly from the will of God; and this is still sometimes affirmed in partibus infidelium outside the enlightened realms of Democracy; as in the well-known lines of Sir Abednego Bink, following:

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By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?
Whose is the sanction of their state and pow'r?
He surely were as stubborn as a mule
Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour
His uninvited session on the throne, or air
His pride securely in the Presidential chair.

Whatever is is so by Right Divine;
Whate'er occurs, God wills it so. Good land!
It were a wondrous thing if His design
A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!
If so, then God, I say (intending no offence)
Is guilty of contributory negligence.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

describing the middle class who ascended to prominence and superceded the landed aristocracy in the seventeenth century. they successfully embarrassed their social betters by proving there was a path to success beyond an inborn divine mandate, while selling out the lower class by perpetuating the cycle of labor exploitation.

also their taste in decor leans incontestably toward the brummagem.

The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be innocently "glened" as soon as its occupant is done "smellynge," the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now generally accepted by archæologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has been greatly dignified.
(also: death)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A concept which is a paradox always forms around.

Everyone wants to do God's work. Everyone blame God for their problems. But God works in mysterious ways.

Thus either God does nothing but evil or man doing God's job does evil. But if the last statement true no one know what God does this it is impossible for anyone to blame God or do his work because we have no clue what he does.

n. The activity of a tongue that has no ears.
(also: humans)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

it's a big building with generals, but that's not important now

Suicide is an act commit by some people to end their life,science have evidence that people with suicide ideas are crazy people.(and by the way you can stop someone from commiting suicide with using force it's legal.)

(n.) an account of how things stand. what (or who!) has come in, what (or who) has gone out. handy for an overview.

historically, (n.) "a book that lies permanently in some specified place."
historically, also (adj.) "remaining in a place, permanent, stationary"

(n.) ∅


"what was silent in the father speaks in the son"
"mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful,
the hanged man and the bloodhound."
"tarantulas, with their backs turned on life"



"so let's play with the face of hate.
hate me for a moment.
hate everything i am."
"hatred will heat you when you're cold,
hatred will be there when you're alone"

"i wasted time, and now, doth time waste me"



(also: soul-crushing)
(also: hate crimes)
(also: enemies)
(also: revenge)
(also: keeping score)

(also: zero-sum games)
(also: zero-sum thinking)

The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could supply — the sword, the spear and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of propulsion.

The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

all of you shut up, it's me that's spartacus