Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment. - Ambrose Bierce

Optimist, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

I am no investigator with an ear at the key-hole of Nature’s workshop, trying with vulgar curiosity to steal the secrets of her trade. The interests of science are as little to me as mine seem to have been to science.

Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.