Ambrose Bierce
DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.Collection: Influence
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.Collection: Food
A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.Collection: Party
OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.Collection: Law
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.Collection: Father
HASH: There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.Collection: Food
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.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Practice
A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.Collection: Funny
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.Collection: Truth
CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.Collection: Food
A chop is a piece of leather skillfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants.Collection: Food
A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.Collection: Wedding
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.Collection: Dumb
optimism, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with disproof - an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.Collection: Beautiful
When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.Collection: Philosophy
MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.Collection: Important
Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.Collection: Law
I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.Collection: Thinking
There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.Collection: Would Be
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.Collection: Kindness
LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time considered the seat of life; hence its name- liver, the thing we live with.Collection: Heart
ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear.Collection: Voice
REFLECTION,n: An Action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounterCollection: Reflection
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.Collection: Government
DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.Collection: Science
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.Collection: Country
CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do "me"?Collection: Latin
LIAR, n. One who tells an unpleasant truth.Collection: Truth
LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.Collection: Faith
TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.Collection: Temptation
There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.Collection: Genius
An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings the inspired Ode.Collection: Running
repose, v.i. To cease from troubling.Collection: Repose
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. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific-and without science we are as the snakes and toads.Collection: Country
Platitude: All that is mortal of a departed truth.Collection: Departed
MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.Collection: Science
Cribbage, n. A substitute for conversation among those to whom nature has denied ideas.Collection: Ideas
Idiot - A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.Collection: Fashion
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.Collection: Example
Hurry n: The dispatch of bunglers.Collection: Haste
TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.Collection: Food
Rhubarb: essence of stomach ache.Collection: Food
RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.Collection: Food
GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.Collection: Science
Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is 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 deferenceCollection: Military
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.Collection: Christian
DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.Collection: Family
Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo.Collection: Self