The Devil's Dictionary - Excerpts

Ambrose Bierce: Magician of words.
A few quotes from his book -  The Devil's Dictionary.

“PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.”

“OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.”

“DEAD, adj. Done with the work of breathing; done With all the world; the mad race run Though to the end; the golden goal Attained and found to be a hole!" 

"Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic."

"Distance:  The only thing the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep."

"Misfortune:  The kind of fortune that never misses."

"YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments."

“HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another - the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.”

“CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.”

“WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.”