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PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

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
Device
Promoting
Devices
Gentle
Intellectual
Exercise
Debility
Dejection
Pastime

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Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound.
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Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
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In this world one must have a name it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.
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Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.
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EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
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PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
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INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to - in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning.
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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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Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
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The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon.
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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
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Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.
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Doubt is the father of invention.
Ambrose Bierce
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Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
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RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
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Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
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MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
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SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.
Ambrose Bierce