“OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong.”
― The Devil’s Dictionary
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“YEAR, n. A period of 365 disappointments.” – Ambrose Bierce
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“SATAN, n. One of the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and ashes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back.
“There is one favor that I should like to ask,” said he.
“Name it.”
“Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.”
“What, wretch! You his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul—you ask for the right to make his laws?”
“Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.”
It was so ordered.”
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“MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His 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.” ― The Devil’s Dictionary
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“HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.” ― The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary
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“LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.” ― The Devil’s Dictionary
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“PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.”
― The Devil’s Dictionary
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“MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.” ― The Devil’s Dictionary
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“PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” ― The Devil’s Dictionary
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“PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.”
― The Devil’s Dictionary
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“PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.” ― The Devil’s Dictionary
And finally…
“BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters.” ― The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary
The Devil’s Dictionary is a satirical dictionary written by American journalist Ambrose Bierce, consisting of common words followed by humorous and satirical definitions. The lexicon was written over three decades as a series of installments for magazines and newspapers. Bierce’s witty definitions were imitated and plagiarized for years before he gathered them into books, first as The Cynic’s Word Book in 1906 and then in a more complete version as The Devil’s Dictionary in 1911. – via wikipedia.org
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Tonight’s musical offering:
Dispatches from the Asylum 