Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Biercewas an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary. His vehemence as a critic, his motto "Nothing matters", and the sardonic view of human nature that informed his work, all earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce"...
analyze delusion
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
covers criminal ingenious open secret
ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.
sovereign
ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
adored chief distance distinct four god insists jupiter mob modern monumental names natives romans sacred shores stand surviving touched whom work worships
ZEUS, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names.
certain disorder nervous passion
ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.
coins metal pulls putting
Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets.
brain flabby mad yields
APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. --""The Mad Philosopher,"" 1697
black doctrine optimism optimist proponent
An optimist is a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
grease great king lead pigs populace sovereigns
ANOINT, v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood, So pigs to lead the populace are greased good. --Judibras
means opinion prejudice visible
A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
attachment creature expedient form fresh shell turtle
APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
days eat fish jolly point salmon
ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.If I were a jolly archbishop, On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up -- Salmon and flounders and smelts; On other days everything else. --Jodo Rem
point
ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
foundation future lay
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.