Ambrose Bierce

POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.

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.

LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.

MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.

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

Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.

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

Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.

MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter (see Molecule). The monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation - containing all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher . .

COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.

UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.

RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.

Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

WEATHER, n. The climate of an hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned. The setting up of official weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.

WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.

SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .