Author: Ambrose Bierce

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

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Art Definitions

Outdo: To make an enemy.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Communication Definitions Language

Critic: One who boasts of being “hard to please” because nobody tries to please him. 

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Definitions Occupations Work

Rear: In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Congress Definitions Military

Discussion: A method of confirming others in their errors.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Communication Definitions Language Mistakes People

Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Communication Definitions Language Self

Man: An animal [whose]… chief occupation is the extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Definitions People Women

Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Communication Definitions Language

Diagnosis: A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Communication Definitions Health Language Money

Consolation: The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Communication Definitions Language

Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Definitions Money

Epitaph: An inscription which hopes that virtues acquired by death will have a retroactive effect.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Definitions

Peace: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Communication Definitions Fights Politics Time

Un-American: Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
America Characteristics Definitions Places

Truthful: Dumb and illiterate.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Characteristics Definitions Honesty

Revolution: An abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Conflict Definitions Government

Photograph: A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Art Definitions Things

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Intelligence People

Teetotaler: One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Alcohol Definitions Wordplay

Secret: What we tell everybody to tell nobody.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Beliefs Definitions

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.

(1842 – 1914) author & satirist
Animals Dogs