The Devil’s Dictionary Ambrose Bierce (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📖

thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
“God keep you, stranger,” I exclaimed. “You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too.”
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied⁠—his manner with disdain was spiced:
“What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I’m Christ.” —⁠G. J. Circus

A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.

Clairvoyant

A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron⁠—namely, that he is a blockhead.

Clarinet

An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarinet⁠—two clarinets.

Clergyman

A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.

Clio

One of the nine Muses. Clio’s function was to preside over history⁠—which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent citizens of Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being addressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and other popular speakers.

Clock

A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.

A busy man complained one day:
“I get no time!” “What’s that you say?”
Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;
“You have, sir, all the time there is.
There’s plenty, too, and don’t you doubt it⁠—
We’re never for an hour without it.”

—⁠Purzil Crofe Closefisted

Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.

“Closefisted Scotchman!” Johnson cried
To thrifty J. Macpherson;
“See me⁠—I’m ready to divide
With any worthy person.”
Sad Jamie: “That is very true⁠—
The boast requires no backing;
And all are worthy, sir, to you,
Who have what you are lacking.”

—⁠Anita M. Bobe Comfort

A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness.

Commendation

The tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own.

Commerce

A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

Commonwealth

An administrative entity operated by an incalculable multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously efficient.

This commonwealth’s capitol’s corridors view,
So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew
Of clerks, pages, porters and all attachés
Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins
Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.
On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,
Misfortune attend and disaster befall!
May life be to them a succession of hurts;
May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;
May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,
Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;
May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,
And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;
May corncobs be snared without hope in their hair,
And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.
Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse
Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,
By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors⁠—
The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!
Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!
Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,
Avenging the friend whom I couldn’t work in.

—⁠K. Q. Compromise

Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.

Compulsion

The eloquence of power.

Condole

To show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.

Confidant Confidante

One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by him to C.

Congratulation

The civility of envy.

Congress

A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

Connoisseur

A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him. “Pauillac, 1873,” he murmured and died.

Conservative

A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Consolation

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

Consul

In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

Consult

To seek another’s disapproval of a course already decided on.

Contempt

The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

Controversy

A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannonball and the inconsiderate bayonet.

In controversy with the facile tongue⁠—
That bloodless warfare of the old and young⁠—
So seek your adversary to engage
That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,
And, like a snake that’s fastened to the ground,
With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.
You ask me how this miracle is done?
Adopt his own opinions, one by one,
And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath
He’ll sweep them pitilessly from his path.
Advance then gently all you wish to prove,
Each proposition prefaced with, “As you’ve
So well remarked,” or, “As you wisely say,
And I cannot dispute,” or, “By the way,
This view of it which, better far expressed,
Runs through your argument.” Then leave the rest
To him, secure that he’ll perform his trust
And prove your views intelligent and just.

—⁠Conmore Apel Brune Convent

A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness.

Conversation

A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

Coronation

The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.

Corporal

A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military ladder.

Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,
Our corporal heroically fell!
Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl
And said: “He hadn’t very far to fall.”

—⁠Giacomo Smith Corporation

An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Corsair

A politician of