Related:

• EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
  The exception proves the rule" is an expression constantly upon the lips of the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought of its absurdity....
• In accepting an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame a few years ago, General David Sarnoff [head of RCA] made this stateme
  We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of those who wield them....
• J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel -- than which nothing could be more absurd.
  Its original form, which has been but slightly modified, was that of the tail of a subdued dog, and it was not a letter but a character, standing for a Latin verb, _jacere_, "to throw," because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape....
• ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing 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 considerably dissent among the learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial....
• GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• Reporter, n.: A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house.
  Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse....