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PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.

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
Property
Lamenting
Wealth
Reticence
Leave
Customary
Opportunity
Vanishing
Another
Plunder
Without
Theft
Take
Observing
Decent
Wrest

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LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used ... as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
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BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.
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Justice is a commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Ambrose Bierce
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ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.
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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of hands across the sea, and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night professions of eternal amity provide the nigh
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Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.
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A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything. The master of the art accomplishes the formidable task of discrimination.
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
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HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.
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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
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HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.
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Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.
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EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
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IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
Ambrose Bierce
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Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce