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.Collection: Kings
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.Collection: Kindness
SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.Collection: Work
A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.Collection: Soul
MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.Collection: Talking
True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked "Unknown," and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in "honoring the memory" of him of whom no memory remains to honor; but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.Collection: Memories
Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions; where it can get a foothold it makes a stand; where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.Collection: Wall
PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.Collection: Hope
JOSS-STICKS- Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.Collection: Chinese
MONSIGNOR- A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.Collection: Religion
CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.Collection: Men
PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.Collection: Christian
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.Collection: Republic
PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.Collection: Philosophy
GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted.Collection: Agency
RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.Collection: Digging
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.Collection: Vegetables
Philanthropist, n.: A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.Collection: Gentleman
HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.Collection: Husband
ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.Collection: Love
ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.Collection: Wisdom
VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.Collection: Understanding
Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelasticCollection: Growth
Kiss. n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss".Collection: Best Love
Miss, n. A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate 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. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Exercise
CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: "The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses."Collection: Strong
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.Collection: Nature
A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.Collection: Opportunity
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.Collection: Turtles
MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Science
NOVEL, n. A short story padded.Collection: Stories
General," said the commander of the delinquent brigade, "I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.Collection: Funny
A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.Collection: Men
THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science.Collection: Religion
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.Collection: Believe
BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.Collection: Spiritual
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.Collection: Vices
RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.Collection: Soul
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him.Collection: Wine
PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Horse
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.Collection: Believe
RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless.Collection: Trust
ZEUS /n./ The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.Collection: Dog
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.Collection: Confusion
PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.Collection: Army
Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.Collection: Death