Ambrose Bierce

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Congratulations is the civility of envy.

Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.

To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.

DELEGATION n. In American politics an article of merchandise that comes in sets.

The best kind of onion soup is the simplest kind.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

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.

Adolescence: A stage between infancy and adultery.

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

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.

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.

Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.

Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.

When you doubt abstain.

Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

FIDELITY n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

ENTERTAINMENT n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.

Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Alligator The crocodile of America superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

Lawyers are: One skilled in the circumvention of the law.

Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.

Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.

In each human heart are a tiger a pig an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.

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.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.

Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.

Debt n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.

An acquaintance is someone we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to.

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.

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.

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.

Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

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.

Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

A person of greater enterprise than discretion who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.

Politics, noun. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power or the consideration to be dead.

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

Politeness -- The most acceptable hypocrisy.

Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.

Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.

Coward One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

When you doubt, abstain.

NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

The covers of this book are too far apart.

A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.

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.

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

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.

Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.

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.

Birth The first and direst of all disasters.

There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.

Brain an apparatus with which we think we think.

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.

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.

Doubt is the father of invention.

Famous adj. Conspicuously miserable.

Longevity uncommon extension of the fear of death.

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

Convictions are variable to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.

It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.