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Magic: (n) The art of converting superstition into coin.

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
Coins
Superstitions
Magic
Art
Converting
Coin
Superstition

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A chop is a piece of leather skillfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants.
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MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.
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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
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An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
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Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.
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Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
Ambrose Bierce
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X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.
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PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
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RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
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PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.
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EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.
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A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
Ambrose Bierce
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USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.
Ambrose Bierce
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actually, adv. Perhaps possibly.
Ambrose Bierce
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WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.
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PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.
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REDEMPTION, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned . . . . whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
Ambrose Bierce