Ambrose Bierce

REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.

IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.

CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.

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

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.

ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude . . .

PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.

I think love is the most unbelievable, and critical, thing in civilization. Everything else is very mechanical and predictable, but love, you can't catch it.

YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.

AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.

FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.

TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.

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.

Pertaining to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as Normal American. Most of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic. Recent additions to the White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of the Dorians. They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a brick.

Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.