In his lecture Ian Morris mentioned the book The Devil’s Dictionary published in 1906 by Ambrose Bierce, Ian quoted the definition of history. The book is an aphoristic clinic. Look at those beauties:
- ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
- AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
- APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.
- AMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
- AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
- CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
- DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.
- DESTINY, n. A tyrant’s authority for crime and fool’s excuse for failure.
- DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
- DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.
- DISTRESS, n. A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
- ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
- ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man’s choice.
- ERUDITION, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
- ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.
- FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
- FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.
- FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
- HABIT, n. A shackle for the free.
- HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
- KORAN, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
- MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.
- MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
- NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.
- NOVEMBER, n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
- PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
- PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
- RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
- SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.