Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
Nature
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History: An account mostly false, of events, unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
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The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
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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.
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Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
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Projectile - n. the final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were resolved by physical contact of the disputants with such arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times would supply - sword, spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by all. Its capital defect ( in Bierce's day ) has been that it requires personal attendance at the point of launch.
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Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
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Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
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Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Sports
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History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
History
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Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
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Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
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Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.
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Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
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A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.
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Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
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Marriage. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
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Wedding: a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable
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Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
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Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
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I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
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Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
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Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
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Marriage: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
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Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
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Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
Marriage
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Physician -- One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
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Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
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Doubt is the father of invention.
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