The Devil's Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce: Short Quotes

Contempt — the feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

Plan — to bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

Year — a period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

Recollect — to recall with additions something not previously known.

Cannon — an instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.

Magic — an art of converting superstition into coin.

Peace — in international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

Physician — one upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

Police — an armed force for protection and participation.

Painting — the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

Reverence — the spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.