Ambrose Bierce

Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.

Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

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

History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.

ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear.

GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.

KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.

UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.

ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.

Glutton- A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.