Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce American satirist, critic, short story writer, editor and journalist. He is perhaps most famous for his serialized mock lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary, in which, over the years, he scathed American culture and accepted wisdom by pointing out alternate, more practical definitions for common words.

Found 1072 thoughts of Ambrose Bierce

ABSCOND, v.i. To "move in a mysterious way," commonly with the property of another. Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond. Phela Orm

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.

Experience, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

BEARD, n. The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.

PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.

IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another. An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, was asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. "Because," he replied, "death is no better than life." It is longer.

DUCK-BILL, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.

NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. Said a man to a crapulent youth: "I thought You a total abstainer, my son." "So I am, so I am," said the scrapgrace caught -- "But not, sir, a bigoted one." G.J.

GREAT, adj. "I'm great," the Lion said -- "I reign The monarch of the wood and plain!" The Elephant replied: "I'm great -- No quadruped can match my weight!" "I'm great -- no animal has half So long a neck!" said the Giraffe. "I'm great," the Kangaroo said -- "see My femoral muscularity!" The 'Possum said: "I'm great -- behold, My tail is lithe and bald and cold!" An Oyster fried was understood To say: "I'm great because I'm good!" Each reckons greatness to consist In that in which he heads the list, And Vierick thinks he tops his class Because he is the greatest ass. Arion Spurl Doke

Love, n - A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.

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 from this view of the matter there was once a considerably dissent among the learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The Horizontalist heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among _fides defuncti_.

HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of this dicky-bird is _Porcus Rockefelleri_. Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.

LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns. Ah, punster, would my lot were cast, Where the cobbler is unknown, So that I might forget his last And hear your own. Gargo Repsky

FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.

ALONE, adj. In bad company. In contact, lo! the flint and steel, By spark and flame, the thought reveal That he the metal, she the stone, Had cherished secretly alone. Booley Fito

DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave- driver. As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet, Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him, Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him; So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him, Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him, Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it, And finds at last he might as well have paid it. Barlow S. Vode

CAMEL, n. A quadruped (the _Splaypes humpidorsus_) of great value to the show business. There are two kinds of camels -- the camel proper and the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited.

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. The sarcophagus known to modern obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter's art.

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.

Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

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