The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce


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Page 80

PROSPECT, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually
forbidden.

Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes --
O'er Ceylon blow your breath,
Where every prospect pleases,
Save only that of death.

Bishop Sheber


PROVIDENTIAL, adj. Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the
person so describing it.

PRUDE, n. A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.

PUBLISH, n. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in
a cone of critics.

PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success,
especially in politics. The other is Pull.

PYRRHONISM, n. An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It
consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its
modern professors have added that.



Q



QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king,
and through whom it is ruled when there is not.

QUILL, n. An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly
wielded by an ass. This use of the quill is now obsolete, but its
modern equivalent, the steel pen, is wielded by the same everlasting
Presence.

QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the
aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.

He extracted from his quiver,
Did the controversial Roman,
An argument well fitted
To the question as submitted,
Then addressed it to the liver,
Of the unpersuaded foeman.

Oglum P. Boomp


QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into
the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily
denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name
is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

When ignorance from out of our lives can banish
Philology, 'tis folly to know Spanish.

Juan Smith


QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to
have their own way and their own way of having it. In the United
States Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on
Finance and a messenger from the White House; in the House of
Representatives, of the Speaker and the devil.

QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
The words erroneously repeated.

Intent on making his quotation truer,
He sought the page infallible of Brewer,
Then made a solemn vow that we would be
Condemned eternally. Ah, me, ah, me!

Stumpo Gaker

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sun 28th Dec 2025, 14:04