Quotes - The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary Quotes





  The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce



The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary Quotes


“Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Patience – A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

 “Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary


“Belladonna, n.: In Italian, a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.
Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary [Facsimile Edition]


“Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary



“Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary



“Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Impiety, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary



“MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary


“NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore-
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.

This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary


“Cribbage, n. A substitute for conversation among those to whom nature has denied ideas.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Friendship: A ship big enough for two in fair weather, but only one in foul.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

 


“Think twice before you speak to a friend in need”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Peace: A period of cheating between two periods of fighting.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

 


“INCEST, n. In many parts of the Bible Belt, the most popular form of dating”
― Charles Bufe, The Devil's Dictionaries: The Best of the Devil's Dictionary & the American Heretic's Dictionary



“Bride, n. - A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“Humanity, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
 

“HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

 

“It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of
others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that
the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“Idiot - A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary



“MAN, n.
An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“War: A by-product of the arts of peace.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary


“POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
 





Source:  http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/865289-the-cynic-s-word-book?page=2