[wdvltalk-social] Church Dictionary - Mencken

[joseph harris]

Just turned this up and thought it might amuse

             Church Dictionary

Archbishop
     A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by  Christ.

Church
     A place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag  about it to people who will never get there.

Clergyman
     A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.

Conscience
     The inner voice which warns us that someone is looking.

Confidence
     The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows  that one would lie in his place.

Creator
     A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

Evil
     That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil  of others, but it is seldom a mistake.

Experience
     A series of failures. Every failure teaches a man something, to  wit, that he will probably fail again.

Fine
     A bribe paid by a rich man to escape the lawful penalty of his  crime.

Husband
     A No. 16 neck in a No. 15 1/2 collar.

Idealist
     One who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Immorality
     The morality of those who are having a better time.

Jealousy
     The theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.

Love
     The delusion that one woman differs from another.

Morality
     The theory that every human act must either be right or wrong, and that 99% of them are wrong.

Pastor
     One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay.

Platitude
     An idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, everyone,  and (b) that is not true.

Psychology
     The theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow, and is certainly a damned fool.

Sunday
     A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.

Sunday School
     A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

            - H.L. Mencken
            A Book of Burlesques [1916, 1924]


Joseph Harris
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.preshweb.co.uk/pipermail/wdvltalk-social/attachments/20080229/60cfb09c/attachment.htm