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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

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Ambrose Bierce
Born: 1842
Born: June 24
Aphorist
Journalist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Meigs County
Ohio
Dod Grile
William Herman
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Essentials
Striking
English
Reincarnation
Identity
Deadly
Example
Italian
Language
Poison
Beautiful
Lady
Two
Tongue
Essential
Tongues

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RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
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Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
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PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
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SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.
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Rhubarb: essence of stomach ache.
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Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
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Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
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Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
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A lottery is a tax on stupidity.
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LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
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LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
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PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
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Mad adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves at odds with the majority in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.
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MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable . . . Commonly Saxon - that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.
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POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.
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RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.
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HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
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CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
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