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Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

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
Wells
Degrees
Borrow
Well
Friendship
Slight
Enough
Objects
Acquaintance
Called
Obscure
Rich
Intimate
Poor
Famous
Persons
Degree
Person
Object
Lend

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Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.
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An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
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A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
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PICKANINNY, n. The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.
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BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
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OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .
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ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
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RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
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Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.
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Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
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actually, adv. Perhaps possibly.
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OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.
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MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.
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Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Ambrose Bierce
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ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
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IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
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Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.
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PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.
Ambrose Bierce
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Age - That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.
Ambrose Bierce