Nonsense is to sense, as shade to light; it heightens effect

Pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large quantities. No man who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others.

Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.

Mammon is the largest slave-holder in the world

We'll have to see," Belbo said. He rummaged in his drawer and took out some sheets of paper. "Potio-section..." He looked at me, saw my bewilderment. "Potio-section, as everybody knows, of course, is the art of slicing soup. No, no," he said to Diotallevi. "It's not the department, it's a subject, like Mechanical Avunculogratulation or Pylocatabasis. They all under the same heading of Tetrapyloctomy."

"What's tetra...?" I asked.

"The art of splitting hairs four ways. This is the department of useless techniques. Mechanical Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to build machines for greeting uncles. We're not sure, though, if Pylocatabasis belongs, since it's the art of being saved by a hair. Somehow that doesn't seem completely useless."

"All right, gentlemen," I said, "I give up. What are you two talking about?"

"Well, Diotallevi and I are planning a reform in higher education. A School of Comparative Irrelevance, where useless or impossible courses are given. The school's main is to turn out scholars capable of endlessly increasing the number of unnecessary subjects.

Nonsense is so good only because common sense is so limited