The Devil's Dictionary — Ambrose Bierce

The Devil's Dictionary

Ambrose Bierce · Лицензия: Public domain · Источник

• "Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked. "I should say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't come out of his works!" ¶1074
• OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an _old man_. Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an _old_ book. ¶1075
• "Old books? The devil take them!" Goby said. "Fresh every day must be my books and bread." Nature herself approves the Goby rule And gives us every moment a fresh fool. ¶1076
• OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek. ¶1078
• Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as "unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous." And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it. ¶1079
• OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his appetite. ¶1080
• His name the smirking tourist scrawls Upon Minerva's temple walls, Where thundered once Olympian Zeus, And marks his appetite's abuse. ¶1081
• OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens. ¶1083
• The actor apes a man--at least in shape; The opera performer apes an ape. ¶1086
• OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard. ¶1087
• OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment. ¶1088
• OPPOSE, v. To assist with obstructions and objections. ¶1089
• How lonely he who thinks to vex With bandinage the Solemn Sex! Of levity, Mere Man, beware; None but the Grave deserve the Unfair. ¶1090
• OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it. ¶1092
• "What shall we do now?" the King asked. "Liberal institutions cannot be maintained without a party of Opposition." ¶1094
• "Splendor of the universe," replied the Prime Minister, "it is true these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but all is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust." ¶1095
• OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white. ¶1098
• A pessimist applied to God for relief. ¶1099
• "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. ¶1100
• "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them." ¶1101
• "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked something--the mortality of the optimist." ¶1102
• ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography. ¶1103
• ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious yoke. ¶1105
• ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to be conceded hereafter. ¶1106
• A spelling reformer indicted For fudge was before the court cicted. The judge said: "Enough-- His candle we'll snough, And his sepulchre shall not be whicted." ¶1107
• OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly. ¶1108
• OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom of an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it. ¶1110
• OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets. ¶1112
• I climbed to the top of a mountain one day To see the sun setting in glory, And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray, Of a perfectly splendid story. ¶1113
• 'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested; Then the man would carry him miles on the road Till Neddy was pretty well rested. ¶1114
• The moon rising solemnly over the crest Of the hills to the east of my station Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west Like a visible new creation. ¶1115
• And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried) Of an idle young woman who tarried About a church-door for a look at the bride, Although 'twas herself that was married. ¶1116
• To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand Ideas--with thought and emotion. I pity the dunces who don't understand The speech of earth, heaven and ocean. ¶1117
• OVATION, n. In ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place. ¶1119
• "I had an ovation!" the actor man said, But I thought it uncommonly queer, That people and critics by him had been led By the ear. ¶1120
• The Latin lexicon makes his absurd Assertion as plain as a peg; In "ovum" we find the true root of the word. It means egg. ¶1121
• Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess, Well skilled to overeat without distress! Thy great invention, the unfatal feast, Shows Man's superiority to Beast. ¶1124
• OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing. ¶1126
• OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities. ¶1127
• OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor. ¶1128

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