Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – circa 1914) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran.
To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.
Kindness n: A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
mine, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
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.
PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.
A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.
QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit; it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it.
Conversation: 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.
FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.