Favorite Quotes from the Devil's Dictionary

From: The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Accordian: An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

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

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

Beggar: One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.

Cabbage: A familiar kitchen vegetable about as large and as wise as a man's head.

Clairvoyant: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron--namely that he is a blockhead.

Distance: The only thing the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.

Court Fool: The plaintiff.

Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mullahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obea-men, abbes, nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, rchbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplins, mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragains, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.

Litigant: A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

Manna: A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.

Misericorde: A dagger which in medieval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.

Misfortune: The kind of fortune that never misses.

Mulatto: A child of two races, ashamed of both.

Pedestrian: The variable (and audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Rebel: A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Selfish: Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

Trichinosis: The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.

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