A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.
Fresh from the farm or factory or street,

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His marching, in pursuit or in retreat,
Were an impressive martial spectacle
Except for two impediments — his feet.
—Thompson Johnson
(also: problem)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.
(also: war)

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(n.) A concept used by the rich to tell the poor to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", and "I earned this private island/gold plated yacht/one hundred bedroom mansion!" The dress code is top hat and monocle.

(also: Economy)
(also: Socialism)

“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”
― Marilyn Monroe
(also: life)
(also: Marilyn Monroe)

The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, "I beg your pardon," and it is not inconsistent with disregard of the rights of others.

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The owner of a powder mill
Was musing on a distant hill —
Something his mind foreboded —
When from the cloudless sky there fell
A deviled human kidney! Well,
The man's mill had exploded.
His hat he lifted from his head;
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said;
"I didn't know 'twas loaded."
—Swatkin

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(1736 – 1819) Scottish engineer. Watt improved the Newcome steam engine creating an efficient steam engine
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: james watt quotes)

the ancient chinese art of mystical housekeeping

(n.) sweet tempered animal whose various subspecies are spread across the continents of africa and asia, where they are regrettably endangered and fight a daily battle against extinction. morphologically resembles an anteater crossed with a pine cone.

(n.) a way of saying "distinguishing characteristics," when you feel that just saying "distinguishing characteristics" just wouldn't cut it

"hey, this has all the indicia of a run on the banks, george!"

(also: united states of america)
(also: ununited states of america )

X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language. X is the sacred symbol of ten dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., stands for Christ, not, as is popularly supposed, because it represents a cross, but because the corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of his name — Xristos. If it represented a cross it would stand for St. Andrew, who "testified" upon one of that shape. In the algebra of psychology x stands for Woman's mind. Words beginning with X are Grecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary
(also: xbox)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

Muhammad
Isaac Newton
Jesus of Nazareth
Buddha
Confucius
St. Paul
Ts'ai Lun
Johann Gutenberg
Christopher Columbus
Albert Einstein
Louis Pasteur
Galileo Galilei
Aristotle
Euclid
Moses
Charles Darwin
Shih Huang Ti
Augustus Caesar
Nicolaus Copernicus
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
Constantine the Great
James Watt
Michael Faraday
James Clerk Maxwell
Martin Luther
George Washington
Karl Marx
Orville and Wilbur Wright
Genghis Kahn
Adam Smith
William Shakespeare
John Dalton
Alexander the Great
Napoleon Bonaparte
Thomas Edison
Antony van Leeuwenhoek
William T.G. Morton
Guglielmo Marconi
Adolf Hitler
Plato
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Fleming
John Locke
Ludwig van Beethoven
Werner Heisenberg
Louis Daguerre
Simon Bolivar
Rene Descartes
Michelangelo
Pope Urban II
Umar ibn al-Khattab
Asoka
St. Augustine
William Harvey
Ernest Rutherford
John Calvin
Gregor Mendel
Max Planck
Joseph Lister
Nikolaus August Otto
Francisco Pizarro
Hernando Cortes
Thomas Jefferson
Queen Isabella I
Joseph Stalin
Julius Caesar
William the Conqueror
Sigmund Freud
Edward Jenner
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen
Johann Sebastian Bach
Lao Tzu
Voltaire
Johannes Kepler
Enrico Fermi
Leonhard Euler
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
niccolo machiavelli
Thomas Malthus
John F. Kennedy
Gregory Pincus
Mani
Lenin
Sui Wen Ti
Vasco da Gama
Cyrus the Great
Peter the Great
Mao Zedong
Francis Bacon
Henry Ford
Mencius
Zoroaster
Queen Elizabeth I
Mikhail Gorbachev
Menes
Charlemagne
Homer
Justinian I
Mahavira

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill
(also: Winston Churchill)

Anarchy is a society being freely constituted without authorities or a governing body. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. The word Anarchy was first used in English in 1539, meaning "an absence of government".

a blind human who insists that every sighted person is a liar

The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.
(also: guide)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

field of health whose main tenet is that pain is bad in and of itself, rather than just being a symptom of bad. This is in opposition to fitness, which says that pain is a symptom of bodily good.

The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.
(also: art)
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.
(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

(1707 – 1783) Swiss mathematician who made prolific discoveries in calculus and graph theory.
(also: 100 most influential people in the world)
(also: leonhard euler quotes)