Ambrose Bierce: Aktuelle Zitate

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Beauty, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: " Occident, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call ‘war’ and ‘commerce’. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: " Prescription, n. A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Litigation, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Diplomacy, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Effect, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other -- which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog. "
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

Des Teufels Wörterbuch, Gesellschaftskritisches Wörterbuch eines Zynikers. DIE ZEIT 12. Juni 1987 http://www.zeit.de/1987/25/ambrose-bierce-des-teufels-woerterbuch/komplettansicht
"Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=ESpUXpqO55QC&pg=PA77
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Emancipation, n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Accident, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: "Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

Des Teufels Wörterbuch, Gesellschaftskritisches Wörterbuch eines Zynikers
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: " Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch

The Devil's Dictionary
Original engl.: " Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."
Des Teufels Wörterbuch