3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Alliance – in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Wit – the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Enthusiasm – a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Perseverance – a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth – two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
3 December 2020 Ambrose Bierce A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
