Ambrose Bierce · 404 pages
Rating: (8.1K votes)
“Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”
“Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.”
“Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.”
“Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.”
“Patience – A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.”
“Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.”
“Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.”
“Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.”
“Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.”
“Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
“Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”
“Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.”
“Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he can see and feel.”
“Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.”
“Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.”
“Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.”
“HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are
four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and
praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain
whether he fell by one kind or another -- the classification is for
advantage of the lawyers.”
“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.”
“Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.”
“FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.”
“Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”
“Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.”
“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.”
“Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.”
“Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus:
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore-
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.
This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.”
“BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.”
“Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.”
“Tranquillity was not a state of mind that could be sustained for long.”
“There are certain narrow, umimaginative, and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous and sometimes the worst traits in children.”
“Got on! Got on! It's not a question of getting on. That's the wrong view altogether. The Classics aren't a ladder leading to quick success.”
“The next week she withheld my paycheck until I signed a document (drafted by David) in which I promised not to marry Connor. Ever. I signed the document, took the check, and had David draft another document forbidding all Spellmans to practice any form of blackmail. David tried to explain to me that a contract in which you promise not to break the law is ultimately redundant, but I didn't care.”
“I’m going to let you in on a secret. People don’t grow up like you think they do. The whole grown-up thing is a myth. Whatever’s wrong with you now will probably be wrong with you in twenty years. If people really grew up there would be no crime, no divorce, no Civil War reenactors. Think about it. Was Uncle Ray a grown-up? Does Dad always behave like a grown-up? It’s all bullshit. I can’t tell you what Mom’s been doing lately, but I will say, not grown-up… It’s not like you think it will be, that one day you’ll wake up and realize that you’ve got things figured out. You never figure it out. Ever.”
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