Ambrose Bierce

MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.

BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something. A man of great wealth, or one who has been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

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

X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.

EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.

UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.

PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians.

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

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

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.

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

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

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