Childhood, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary.

Other: CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.
IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
INVENTOR, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.