Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary (1906)

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Conversation, n. A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

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Prejudice, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

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Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

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NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.

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Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

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Insurrection, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

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Diplomacy, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

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Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

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Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.

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Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

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Oratory, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding.

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Mammon, n. The god of the world's leading religion. His chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

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Appetite, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

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To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
What face he carries or what form he wears?
But woman's body is the woman. O,
Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,
But heed the warning words the sage hath said:
A woman absent is a woman dead.

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Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

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Kilt, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen [sic] in America and Americans in Scotland.

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Grammar, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet of the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

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Male n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

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Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

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Debauchee n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.

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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.

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Electricity, n. The cause of all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and good man's career.

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Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

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PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.

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Achievement, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

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

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Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

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Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

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Youth, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

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

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