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ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

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
Pits
Statesmen
Rats
Arena
Imaginary
Record
Records
Wrestles
Politics
Statesman

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Labor is one of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
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REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
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Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.
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LINEN, n. A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.
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Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.
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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
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If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.
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RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
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An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
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PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.
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TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
Ambrose Bierce
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RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
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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The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries . .
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alone, adj. In bad company.
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Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
Ambrose Bierce
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TRUCE, n. Friendship.
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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.
Ambrose Bierce