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FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life. -- Ambrose Bierce
YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age. -- Ambrose Bierce
Childhood: 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
Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. -- Ambrose Bierce
SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians. -- Ambrose Bierce
In the algebra of psychology, X stands for a woman's heart. -- Ambrose Bierce
FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs -- Ambrose Bierce
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate. -- Ambrose Bierce
POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer. -- Ambrose Bierce
SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance. -- Ambrose Bierce
Phoenix, n.
The classical prototype of the modern 'small hot bird.' -- Ambrose Bierce
Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo. -- Ambrose Bierce
DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead - a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia. -- Ambrose Bierce
You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest. -- Ambrose Bierce
EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes. -- Ambrose Bierce
LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success. -- Ambrose Bierce
While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide. -- Ambrose Bierce
Rhubarb: essence of stomach ache. -- Ambrose Bierce
OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph." -- Ambrose Bierce
Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears. -- Ambrose Bierce
Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. -- Ambrose Bierce
Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon. -- Ambrose Bierce
LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper ... the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species. -- Ambrose Bierce
Potable, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. -- Ambrose Bierce
Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce
MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals. -- Ambrose Bierce
Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling. -- Ambrose Bierce
REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm. -- Ambrose Bierce
OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. -- Ambrose Bierce
Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water. -- Ambrose Bierce
You scoundrel, you have wronged me," hissed the philosopher, "May you live forever! -- Ambrose Bierce
To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil. -- Ambrose Bierce
MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important. -- Ambrose Bierce
Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation ... Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy. -- Ambrose Bierce
Children who have proven themselves to be incorrigible by the age of twelve should be quickly and quietly beheaded, lest they grow to maturity, marry, and perpetuate the likeness of their being. -- Ambrose Bierce
Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money. -- Ambrose Bierce
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live. -- Ambrose Bierce
WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made; ... also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread "per capita" of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable. -- Ambrose Bierce
A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit. -- Ambrose Bierce
In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation. -- Ambrose Bierce
Men who expect universal peace through invention of destructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who, noting the improvement of agricultural implements, should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil. -- Ambrose Bierce
EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors. -- Ambrose Bierce
HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging. -- Ambrose Bierce
INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman. -- Ambrose Bierce
OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors. -- Ambrose Bierce
EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. -- Ambrose Bierce
GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, "He presided at the piccolo." -- Ambrose Bierce
Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he can see and feel. -- Ambrose Bierce
A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people. -- Ambrose Bierce
Loquacity, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk. -- Ambrose Bierce
INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act. -- Ambrose Bierce
Mesmerism, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner. -- Ambrose Bierce
AMERICANISM, n. 1) The desire to purge America of all those qualities which make it a more or less tolerable place in which to live; 2) The ability to simultaneously kiss ass, follow your boss's orders, swallow a pay cut, piss in a bottle, cower in fear of job loss, and brag about your freedom. -- Ambrose Bierce
Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast. -- Ambrose Bierce
OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor. -- Ambrose Bierce
VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit. -- Ambrose Bierce
Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep. -- Ambrose Bierce
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 Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial. -- Ambrose Bierce
An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization. -- Ambrose Bierce
They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation. -- Ambrose Bierce
Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference. -- Ambrose Bierce
Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. -- Ambrose Bierce
SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it. -- Ambrose Bierce
It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better. -- Ambrose Bierce
TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice. -- Ambrose Bierce
Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office. -- Ambrose Bierce
According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians. -- Ambrose Bierce
For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it. -- Ambrose Bierce
OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. -- Ambrose Bierce
In the army of indigence the uniform is rags; they serve to distinguish the rank and file from the recruiting officers. -- Ambrose Bierce
Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly. -- Ambrose Bierce
MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman. -- Ambrose Bierce
NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life. -- Ambrose Bierce
In neither taste nor precision is any man's practice a court of last appeal, for writers all, both great and small, are habitual sinners against the light; and their accuser is cheerfully aware that his own work will supply ... many 'awful examples' ... -- Ambrose Bierce
MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. -- Ambrose Bierce
A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that. -- Ambrose Bierce
Empty wine bottles have a bad opinion of women. -- Ambrose Bierce
RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. -- Ambrose Bierce
MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart. -- Ambrose Bierce
OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities. -- Ambrose Bierce
A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures. -- Ambrose Bierce
Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire. -- Ambrose Bierce
YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. -- Ambrose Bierce
INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to - in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning. -- Ambrose Bierce
RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs. -- Ambrose Bierce
Congratulations is the civility of envy. -- Ambrose Bierce
Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one. -- Ambrose Bierce
ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection. -- Ambrose Bierce
FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London -- Ambrose Bierce
Christians and camels receive their burdens kneeling. -- Ambrose Bierce
ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity. -- Ambrose Bierce
Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country. -- Ambrose Bierce
Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue. -- Ambrose Bierce
YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer. -- Ambrose Bierce
HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that -- Ambrose Bierce
Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce
Age is provident because the less future we have the more we fear it. -- Ambrose Bierce
ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon- shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author's ideas that they were concatenated without abruption. -- Ambrose Bierce
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. -- Ambrose Bierce
WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven. -- Ambrose Bierce
A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king. -- Ambrose Bierce
BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters - the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind. -- Ambrose Bierce
EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: "O fudge!" -- Ambrose Bierce
Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. -- Ambrose Bierce
LOGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge. -- Ambrose Bierce
A pessimist asked God for relief. Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness, said God. No, replied the petitioner, I wish you to create something that would justify them. The world is all created,said God, but you have overlooked something -- Ambrose Bierce
Picture, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three. -- Ambrose Bierce
One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises. -- Ambrose Bierce
The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another. -- Ambrose Bierce
Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver. -- Ambrose Bierce
Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy. -- Ambrose Bierce
Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral. -- Ambrose Bierce
Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. -- Ambrose Bierce
DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace. -- Ambrose Bierce
FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions. -- Ambrose Bierce
I think love is the most unbelievable, and critical, thing in civilization. Everything else is very mechanical and predictable, but love, you can't catch it. -- Ambrose Bierce
The wife, or bitter half. -- Ambrose Bierce
Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor. -- Ambrose Bierce
DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels. -- Ambrose Bierce
EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends. -- Ambrose Bierce
AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island. -- Ambrose Bierce
What did I fear, and why? - I, to whom the night had been
a more familiar face
than that of man
I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from which none of us is altogether free had given to solitude and darkness and silence only a more alluring interest and charm! -- Ambrose Bierce
There may be thunder in Europe but it is in America the lightning will fall -- Ambrose Bierce
PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne. -- Ambrose Bierce
Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. -- Ambrose Bierce
PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with. -- Ambrose Bierce
Impiety, n. Your irreverence toward my deity. -- Ambrose Bierce
Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. -- Ambrose Bierce
A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible. -- Ambrose Bierce
Pantheism, n.
The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything. -- Ambrose Bierce
If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada. -- Ambrose Bierce
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce
RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. -- Ambrose Bierce
INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache. -- Ambrose Bierce
UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only. -- Ambrose Bierce
Adolescence: A stage between infancy and adultery. -- Ambrose Bierce
A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread. -- Ambrose Bierce
A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the "buffone", or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. -- Ambrose Bierce
The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous markmen had them. Nevertheless, -- Ambrose Bierce
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two. -- Ambrose Bierce
Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue. -- Ambrose Bierce
When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours. -- Ambrose Bierce
OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury. -- Ambrose Bierce
LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he "lost his election". -- Ambrose Bierce
Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it. -- Ambrose Bierce
Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream. -- Ambrose Bierce
Mammon, n. The god of the world's leading religion. His chief temple is in the city of New York -- Ambrose Bierce
ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection. -- Ambrose Bierce
APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697 -- Ambrose Bierce
USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness. -- Ambrose Bierce
MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable ... Commonly Saxon - that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions. -- Ambrose Bierce
A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer. -- Ambrose Bierce
April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly. -- Ambrose Bierce
Laughter
an interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features, and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious, and though intermittent, incurable. -- Ambrose Bierce
OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock. -- Ambrose Bierce
MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees. -- Ambrose Bierce
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable. -- Ambrose Bierce
LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience. -- Ambrose Bierce
Phonograph - An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises. -- Ambrose Bierce
He had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. -- Ambrose Bierce
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce
Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. -- Ambrose Bierce
Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. -- Ambrose Bierce
The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist. -- Ambrose Bierce
Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. -- Ambrose Bierce
REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian. -- Ambrose Bierce
Brower was as courageous a criminal as ever lived to be hanged. -- Ambrose Bierce
ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. -- Ambrose Bierce
Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. -- Ambrose Bierce
To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result. -- Ambrose Bierce
PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference. -- Ambrose Bierce
BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty. -- Ambrose Bierce
LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it. -- Ambrose Bierce
As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit; it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it ... -- Ambrose Bierce
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. -- Ambrose Bierce
A subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship ... [H]is master works for the means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition. -- Ambrose Bierce
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. -- Ambrose Bierce
The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself. -- Ambrose Bierce
Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. -- Ambrose Bierce
ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it. -- Ambrose Bierce
Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle. -- Ambrose Bierce
That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity -- Ambrose Bierce
Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues. -- Ambrose Bierce
If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they. -- Ambrose Bierce
It is one of the important uses of civility to signify resentment. -- Ambrose Bierce
ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke. -- Ambrose Bierce
NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when. -- Ambrose Bierce
SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. -- Ambrose Bierce
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. -- Ambrose Bierce
Glutton- A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia. -- Ambrose Bierce
A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents. -- Ambrose Bierce
QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there. -- Ambrose Bierce
TRUTH, n.: An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time. -- Ambrose Bierce
GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism. -- Ambrose Bierce
MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. -- Ambrose Bierce
DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets. -- Ambrose Bierce
POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others. -- Ambrose Bierce
WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, "the wrath of God," "the day of wrath," etc ... -- Ambrose Bierce
LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg "pate". -- Ambrose Bierce
PALM, n. A species of tree ... of which the familiar "itching palm" ("Palma hominis") is most widely distributed ... This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver. -- Ambrose Bierce
TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own. -- Ambrose Bierce
Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star. -- Ambrose Bierce
Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows. -- Ambrose Bierce
So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter's field I shall soon have both. What wealth! -- Ambrose Bierce
Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul. -- Ambrose Bierce
PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives. -- Ambrose Bierce
RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character. -- Ambrose Bierce
Strive not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style. -- Ambrose Bierce
CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. -- Ambrose Bierce
REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters. -- Ambrose Bierce
TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy. -- Ambrose Bierce
GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside. -- Ambrose Bierce
The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors. -- Ambrose Bierce
BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends. -- Ambrose Bierce
ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as "One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! ... " -- Ambrose Bierce
ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Musca maledicta"). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us. -- Ambrose Bierce
Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. -- Ambrose Bierce
MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. -- Ambrose Bierce
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught. -- Ambrose Bierce
A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe. -- Ambrose Bierce
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case. -- Ambrose Bierce
RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead. -- Ambrose Bierce
NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition. -- Ambrose Bierce
Plagiarism, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence. -- Ambrose Bierce
RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded. -- Ambrose Bierce
EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state. -- Ambrose Bierce
PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic. -- Ambrose Bierce
WIDOW, n. A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one of the most marked features of his character. -- Ambrose Bierce
Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.
Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work. -- Ambrose Bierce
Dictionary, n. A malevolent literacy device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. -- Ambrose Bierce
PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn. -- Ambrose Bierce
Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke. -- Ambrose Bierce
Prospect, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden. -- Ambrose Bierce
Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him. -- Ambrose Bierce
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. -- Ambrose Bierce
PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself. -- Ambrose Bierce
HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions. -- Ambrose Bierce
Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment. -- Ambrose Bierce
DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed. -- Ambrose Bierce
TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer. -- Ambrose Bierce
HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains. -- Ambrose Bierce
QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay. -- Ambrose Bierce
KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland. -- Ambrose Bierce
Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success. -- Ambrose Bierce
The place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters. -- Ambrose Bierce
Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. -- Ambrose Bierce
CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones. -- Ambrose Bierce
Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you. -- Ambrose Bierce
PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost. -- Ambrose Bierce
Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like. -- Ambrose Bierce
NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi. -- Ambrose Bierce
WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity. -- Ambrose Bierce
The covers of this book are too far apart. -- Ambrose Bierce
Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. -- Ambrose Bierce
Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered. -- Ambrose Bierce
ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young. -- Ambrose Bierce
Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness. -- Ambrose Bierce
EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty. -- Ambrose Bierce
Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice. -- Ambrose Bierce
An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop. -- Ambrose Bierce
Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow. -- Ambrose Bierce
Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence. -- Ambrose Bierce
Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced. -- Ambrose Bierce
READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in "dialect" and humor in slang. -- Ambrose Bierce
Die: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Ambrose Bierce
ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble. -- Ambrose Bierce
The god of the world's leading religion. -- Ambrose Bierce
PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another. -- Ambrose Bierce
Introduction - a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies. -- Ambrose Bierce
There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful. -- Ambrose Bierce
PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it. -- Ambrose Bierce
X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language. -- Ambrose Bierce
MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. -- Ambrose Bierce
DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse. -- Ambrose Bierce
What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country. -- Ambrose Bierce
IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow. -- Ambrose Bierce
A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa -- Ambrose Bierce
MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition. -- Ambrose Bierce
INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back. -- Ambrose Bierce
Finance is the art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager -- Ambrose Bierce
To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense. -- Ambrose Bierce
To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore. -- Ambrose Bierce
GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone. -- Ambrose Bierce
Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient. -- Ambrose Bierce
RACK, n. An argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading devotees of a false faith to embrace the living truth. As a call to the unconverted the rack never had any particular efficacy, and is now held in light popular esteem. -- Ambrose Bierce
EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect. -- Ambrose Bierce
Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection. -- Ambrose Bierce
Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope. -- Ambrose Bierce
EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled. -- Ambrose Bierce
REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed. -- Ambrose Bierce
ZEUS /n./ The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. -- Ambrose Bierce
RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition. -- Ambrose Bierce
I can give you my word of honor." "And pray what may be the value of that?" inquired the amused Regent. "Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold. -- Ambrose Bierce
In the presence of death reason and philosophy are silent -- Ambrose Bierce
REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted. -- Ambrose Bierce
Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. -- Ambrose Bierce
Predicament, n. The wage of consistency. -- Ambrose Bierce
Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen. -- Ambrose Bierce
PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution. -- Ambrose Bierce
HEART, n. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments ... It is now known that sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. -- Ambrose Bierce
Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure. -- Ambrose Bierce
JOSS-STICKS- Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray; big belly ache, heap God.' -- Ambrose Bierce
Inexpedient: Not calculated to advance one's interests. -- Ambrose Bierce
Habit: A shackle for the free. -- Ambrose Bierce
GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest. -- Ambrose Bierce
I was born to poor because of honest parents. -- Ambrose Bierce
BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. -- Ambrose Bierce
DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another. -- Ambrose Bierce
INK, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. -- Ambrose Bierce
The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles. -- Ambrose Bierce
Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make. -- Ambrose Bierce
reverent title had previously been forced upon him by the religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the work had appeared, with the natural -- Ambrose Bierce
Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. -- Ambrose Bierce
Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity. -- Ambrose Bierce
REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. -- Ambrose Bierce
Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. -- Ambrose Bierce
SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent. -- Ambrose Bierce
BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion. -- Ambrose Bierce
In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity. -- Ambrose Bierce
Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. -- Ambrose Bierce
PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it. -- Ambrose Bierce
HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not. -- Ambrose Bierce
RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself. -- Ambrose Bierce
Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises. -- Ambrose Bierce
Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion. -- Ambrose Bierce
SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven. -- Ambrose Bierce
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect ("Glossina morsitans") whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist ("Mendax interminabilis"). -- Ambrose Bierce
EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort. -- Ambrose Bierce
Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit. -- Ambrose Bierce
FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude. -- Ambrose Bierce
KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss." It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer. -- Ambrose Bierce
The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon. -- Ambrose Bierce
The devil had not only acquired a monopoly of the good music and the good fun, but has of late acquired a controlling interest in the good writing. -- Ambrose Bierce
Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President. -- Ambrose Bierce
REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive. -- Ambrose Bierce
SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones. -- Ambrose Bierce
PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion. -- Ambrose Bierce
GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers. -- Ambrose Bierce
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed ... deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life. -- Ambrose Bierce
God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past. -- Ambrose Bierce
Humor, like Death, has all seasons for his own. -- Ambrose Bierce
A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else. -- Ambrose Bierce
OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard. -- Ambrose Bierce
Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. -- Ambrose Bierce
When in Rome, do as Rome does. -- Ambrose Bierce
Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin. -- Ambrose Bierce
The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two. -- Ambrose Bierce
It has been observed
that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of
others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that
the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. -- Ambrose Bierce
Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others. -- Ambrose Bierce
RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them. -- Ambrose Bierce
ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity. -- Ambrose Bierce
Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command -- Ambrose Bierce
A revolution is a violent change of mismanagement. -- Ambrose Bierce
MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants. -- Ambrose Bierce
LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system - an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. -- Ambrose Bierce
Consult, v.t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on. Contempt, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed. -- Ambrose Bierce
MONSIGNOR- A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages. -- Ambrose Bierce
Grammar, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet of the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction. -- Ambrose Bierce
Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is, instead of as it should be. -- Ambrose Bierce
ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution. -- Ambrose Bierce
HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation. -- Ambrose Bierce
A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce
The ghost is the outward and visible signs of an inward fear. -- Ambrose Bierce
DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors. -- Ambrose Bierce
Aphorism, n. Predigested wisdom. -- Ambrose Bierce
Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours. -- Ambrose Bierce
The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge. -- Ambrose Bierce
Philanthropist. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket ... -- Ambrose Bierce
PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead. -- Ambrose Bierce
Poverty and zeal are an upper and a nether millstone. It is dangerous to make a third in that kind of sandwich. -- Ambrose Bierce
Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting -- Ambrose Bierce
HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick. -- Ambrose Bierce
True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman. -- Ambrose Bierce
URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, "I beg your pardon," and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others. -- Ambrose Bierce
Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world. -- Ambrose Bierce
CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, author of 'Cogito ergo sum' to demonstrate the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved 'Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum' 'I think that I think, therefore I think that I am' as close an approach. -- Ambrose Bierce
K, n. A consonant; originally precisely that of our H, but altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of [one of two lofty columns in] the great temple of Jarute. -- Ambrose Bierce
Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness. -- Ambrose Bierce
FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat. -- Ambrose Bierce
PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast. -- Ambrose Bierce
ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice. -- Ambrose Bierce
Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized. -- Ambrose Bierce
Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. -- Ambrose Bierce
TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility. -- Ambrose Bierce
Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth. -- Ambrose Bierce
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge. -- Ambrose Bierce
Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. -- Ambrose Bierce
POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. -- Ambrose Bierce
REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next. -- Ambrose Bierce
The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up. -- Ambrose Bierce
PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought. -- Ambrose Bierce
Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out. -- Ambrose Bierce
Human nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch
as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward. -- Ambrose Bierce
VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass. -- Ambrose Bierce
Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals. -- Ambrose Bierce
Adore, v.t. To venerate expectantly. -- Ambrose Bierce
FORCE, n. "Force is but might," the teacher said p/ "That definition's just."/ The boy said naught but throught instead,/ Remembering his pounded head:/ "Force is not might but must!" -- Ambrose Bierce
A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle. -- Ambrose Bierce
MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle. -- Ambrose Bierce
When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover. -- Ambrose Bierce
CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal. -- Ambrose Bierce
Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else. -- Ambrose Bierce
PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience. -- Ambrose Bierce
OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe ... The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly. -- Ambrose Bierce
Take not God's name in vain; select a time when it will have effect. -- Ambrose Bierce
PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience. -- Ambrose Bierce
New York is too strenuous for me; it gets on my nerves. -- Ambrose Bierce
QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not. -- Ambrose Bierce
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. -- Ambrose Bierce
Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore. -- Ambrose Bierce
RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic. -- Ambrose Bierce
The sum of religion, says Pythagoras, is to be like him thou worshipest. Had Pythagoras lived in our day he would have seen his mistake. The sum of modern religion is to make him thou worshipest like unto thyself. -- Ambrose Bierce
IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors. -- Ambrose Bierce
Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible. -- Ambrose Bierce
A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable. -- Ambrose Bierce
MARTYR, One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death. -- Ambrose Bierce
INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things. -- Ambrose Bierce
Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. -- Ambrose Bierce
REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words. -- Ambrose Bierce
CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet - two clarionets. -- Ambrose Bierce
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass. -- Ambrose Bierce
But a voting-machine that human ingenuity can not pervert, human ingenuity can not invent. That -- Ambrose Bierce
Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage. -- Ambrose Bierce
When you doubt, abstain. -- Ambrose Bierce
PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic. -- Ambrose Bierce
The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forebearance among men. -- Ambrose Bierce
NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient. -- Ambrose Bierce
Behavior, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding. -- Ambrose Bierce
WEAKNESSES, n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies. -- Ambrose Bierce
Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having. -- Ambrose Bierce
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured. -- Ambrose Bierce
Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers. -- Ambrose Bierce
WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil. -- Ambrose Bierce
PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude. -- Ambrose Bierce
Hurry n: The dispatch of bunglers. -- Ambrose Bierce
MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated. -- Ambrose Bierce
POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation. -- Ambrose Bierce
RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day. -- Ambrose Bierce
PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics. -- Ambrose Bierce
The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense. -- Ambrose Bierce
Reality, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. -- Ambrose Bierce
PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action. -- Ambrose Bierce
When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had. -- Ambrose Bierce
Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce
IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. -- Ambrose Bierce
A man is known by the company he organizes. -- Ambrose Bierce
MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. -- Ambrose Bierce
SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death. -- Ambrose Bierce
Magic: (n) The art of converting superstition into coin. -- Ambrose Bierce
The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations. -- Ambrose Bierce
Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded. -- Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel. -- Ambrose Bierce
Age - That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit. -- Ambrose Bierce
CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. -- Ambrose Bierce
RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect. -- Ambrose Bierce
I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London. -- Ambrose Bierce
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others. -- Ambrose Bierce
Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption. -- Ambrose Bierce
Immoral is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb. -- Ambrose Bierce
UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife. -- Ambrose Bierce
Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. -- Ambrose Bierce
Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support. -- Ambrose Bierce
PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that. -- Ambrose Bierce
LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives. -- Ambrose Bierce
OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment ... judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it. -- Ambrose Bierce
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. -- Ambrose Bierce
CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws. -- Ambrose Bierce
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. -- Ambrose Bierce
DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world. -- Ambrose Bierce
IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices. -- Ambrose Bierce
A chop is a piece of leather skillfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants. -- Ambrose Bierce
PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it. -- Ambrose Bierce
MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal. -- Ambrose Bierce
Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills. -- Ambrose Bierce
MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt. -- Ambrose Bierce
A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. -- Ambrose Bierce
SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect. -- Ambrose Bierce
PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method ... of obtaining money by false pretences [by] "reading character" in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false ... for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word "dupe." -- Ambrose Bierce
MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language. -- Ambrose Bierce
Art, n. This word has no definition. -- Ambrose Bierce
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. -- Ambrose Bierce
RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with. -- Ambrose Bierce
Custard: A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook. -- Ambrose Bierce
EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador. -- Ambrose Bierce
LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure. -- Ambrose Bierce
TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies. -- Ambrose Bierce
An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods. -- Ambrose Bierce
COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E. -- Ambrose Bierce
RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection. -- Ambrose Bierce
The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money. -- Ambrose Bierce
Least said is soon disavowed. -- Ambrose Bierce
Connoisseur, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else. -- Ambrose Bierce
POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown. -- Ambrose Bierce
BRANDY, n. A cordial composed on one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan. -- Ambrose Bierce
A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth. -- Ambrose Bierce
Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things. -- Ambrose Bierce
EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom. -- Ambrose Bierce
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it. -- Ambrose Bierce
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith. -- Ambrose Bierce
A penny saved is a penny to squander. -- Ambrose Bierce
DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number - just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice. -- Ambrose Bierce
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need -- Ambrose Bierce
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. -- Ambrose Bierce
Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white. -- Ambrose Bierce
At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable. -- Ambrose Bierce
Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy. -- Ambrose Bierce
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence. -- Ambrose Bierce
We must subdue our detestable habit of shaking hands with prosperous rascals and fawning upon the merely rich. -- Ambrose Bierce
We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization. -- Ambrose Bierce
Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table. -- Ambrose Bierce
Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based. -- Ambrose Bierce
REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it. -- Ambrose Bierce
You can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you cannot even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap. -- Ambrose Bierce
BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined. -- Ambrose Bierce
Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -- Ambrose Bierce
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead. -- Ambrose Bierce
They were obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree. -- Ambrose Bierce
DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears. -- Ambrose Bierce
Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing. -- Ambrose Bierce
RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation. -- Ambrose Bierce
This is only a record of broken and apparently unrelated memories, some of them as distinct and sequent as brilliant beads upon a thread, others remote and strange, having the character of crimson dreams with interspaces blank and black
witch-fires glowing still and red in a great desolation. -- Ambrose Bierce
Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband. -- Ambrose Bierce
Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for. -- Ambrose Bierce
PIG, n. An animal ("Porcus omnivorus") closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig. -- Ambrose Bierce
Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. -- Ambrose Bierce
PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. -- Ambrose Bierce
An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching. -- Ambrose Bierce
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him. -- Ambrose Bierce
NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending. -- Ambrose Bierce
Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead. -- Ambrose Bierce
Cribbage, n. A substitute for conversation among those to whom nature has denied ideas. -- Ambrose Bierce
Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify. -- Ambrose Bierce
PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution - they knew no more of the matter than he. -- Ambrose Bierce
RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas. -- Ambrose Bierce
RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them. -- Ambrose Bierce
When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant. -- Ambrose Bierce
REACH, n. The radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide. -- Ambrose Bierce
Predilection, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion. -- Ambrose Bierce
R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of "requiescat in pace", attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than "reductus in pulvis". -- Ambrose Bierce
A Man having found a Lion in his path undertook to subdue him by the power of the human eye; and near by was a Rattlesnake engaged in fascinating a small bird. "How are you getting on, brother?" the Man called out to the other reptile, without removing his eyes from those of the Lion. -- Ambrose Bierce
NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient. -- Ambrose Bierce
ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting. -- Ambrose Bierce
San Francisco is the place where most people were last seen -- Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen. -- Ambrose Bierce