Ambrose Bierce

Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Birth, n. The first and direst of all disasters.

Barometer, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

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

Back, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.

Bacchus, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

Apologize, v. To lay the foundation for a future offense.

Amnesty, n. The state’s magnaminity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

Ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Alone, adj. In bad company.

Advice, n. The smallest current coin.

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous

Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

To men a man is but a mind. Who cares What face he carries or what form he wears? But woman's body is the woman. O, Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go, But heed the warning words the sage hath said: A woman absent is a woman dead.

Absent, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.

Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standards in matters of thought and conduct. To be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward a straiter resemblance to the …

Before undergoing a surgical operation arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.

Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom.

A kiss is but a modified bite, and a fond mother, when she rapturously avers that her babe is 'almost good enough to eat,' merely shows that she is herself only a trifle too good to eat it.

Riven and torn with cannon-shot, the trunks of the trees protruded bunches of splinters like hands, the fingers above the wound interlacing with those below.

One thing, however, I hope I may without offense affirm of these swamp-dwellers--they were pious. To what deity their veneration was given--whether, like the Egyptians, they worshiped the crocodile, or, like other Americans, adored …