The Fiend's Delight - Ambrose Bierce (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📗

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XI. Between old friends and old shoes there are other points of resemblance.

XII. Everybody professes to know that it would be difficult to find a needle in a haystack, but very few reflect that this is because haystacks seldom contain needles.

XIII. A man with but one leg is a better man than a man with two legs, for the reason that there is less of him.

XIV. A man without any legs is better than a man with one leg; not because there is less of him, but because he cannot get about to enact so much wickedness.

XV. When an ostrich is pursued he conceals his head in a bush; when a man is pursued he conceals his property. By instinct each knows his enemy's design.

XVI. There are two things that should be avoided; the deadly upas tree and soda water. The latter will make you puffy and poddy.

XVII. This list of things to be avoided is necessarily incomplete.

XVIII. In calling a man a hog, it is the man who gets angry, but it is the hog who is insulted. Men are always taking up the quarrels of others.

XIX. Give an American a newspaper and a pie and he will make himself comfortable anywhere.

XX. The world of mind will be divided upon the question of baptism so long as there are two simple and effective methods of baptising, and they are equally disagreeable.

XXI. They are not equally disagreeable, but each is disagreeable enough to attract disciples.

XXII. The face of a pig is a more handsome face than the face of a man-in the pig's opinion.

XXIII. A pig's opinion upon this question is as likely to be correct as is a man's opinion.

XXIV. It is better not to take a wife than to take one belonging to some other man: for if she has been a good wife to him, she has adapted her nature to his, and will therefore be unsuited to yours. If she has not been a good wife to him she will not be to you.

XXV. The most gifted people are not always the most favoured: a man with twelve legs can derive no benefit from ten of them without crawling like a centipede.

XXVI. A woman and a cow are the two most beautiful creatures in the world. For proof of the beauty of a cow, the reader is referred to an ox; for proof of the beauty of a woman, an ox is referred to the reader.

XXVII. There is reason to believe that a baby is less comely than a calf, for the reason that all kine esteem the calf the more comely beast, and there is one man who does not esteem the baby the more comely beast.

XXVII. To judge of the wisdom of an act by its result is a very shallow plan. An action is wise or unwise the moment it is decided upon.

XXIX. If the wisdom of an action may not be determined by the result, it is very difficult to determine it.

XXX. It is impossible.

XXXI. The moon always presents the same side to the earth because she is heaviest on that side. The opposite side, however, is more private and secluded.

XXXII. Camels and Christians receive their burdens kneeling.

XXXIII. It was never intended that men should be saints in heaven until they are dead and good for nothing else. On earth they are mostly

XXXIV. Fools.

I, Grile, have arranged these primal truths in the order of their importance, in the hope that some patient investigator may amplify and codify them into a coherent body of doctrine, and so establish a new religion. I would do it myself were it not that a very corpulent and most unexpected pudding is claiming my present attention.

O, steaming enigma! O, savoury mountain of hidden mysteries! too long neglected for too long a sermon. Engaging problem, let me reveal the secrets latent in thy breast, and unfold thine occult philosophy! [Cutting into the pudding.] Ah! here, and here alone is-[Eating it]. LAUGHORISMS.

.... When a favourite dog has an incurable pain, you "put him out of his misery" with a bullet or an axe. A favourite child similarly afflicted is preserved as long as possible, in torment. I do not say that this is not right; I claim only that it is not consistent. There arc two sorts of kindness; one for dogs, and another for children. A very dear friend, wallowing about in the red mud of a battle-field, once asked me for some of the dog sort. I suspect, if no one had been looking, he would have got it.

.... It is to be feared that to most men the sky is but a concave mirror, showing nothing behind, and in looking into which they see only their own distorted images, like the reflection of a face in a spoon. Hence it needs not surprise that they are not very devout worshippers; it is a great wonder they do not openly scoff.

.... The influence of climate upon civilization has been more exhaustively treated than studied. Otherwise, we should know how it is that some countries that have so much climate have no civilization.

.... Whoso shall insist upon holding your attention while he expounds to you things that you have always thriven without knowing resembles one who should go about with a hammer, cracking nuts upon other people's heads and eating the kernels himself.

.... There are but two kinds of temporary insanity, and each has but a single symptom. The one was discovered by a coroner, the other by a lawyer. The one induces you to kill yourself when you are unwell of life; the other persuades you to kill somebody else when you are fatigued of seeing him about.

.... People who honour their fathers and their mothers have the comforting promise that their days shall be long in the land. They are not sufficiently numerous to make the life assurance companies think it worth their while to offer them special rates.

.... There are people who dislike to die, for apparently no better reason than that there are a few vices they have not had the time to try; but it must be confessed that the fewer there are of these untasted sweets, the more loth are they to leave them.

.... Men ought to sin less in petty details, and more in the lump; that they might the more conveniently be brought to repentance when they are ready. They should imitate the touching solicitude of the lady for the burglar, whom she spares much trouble by keeping her jewels well together in a box.

.... I once knew a man who made me a map of the opposite hemisphere of the moon. He was crazy. I knew another who taught me what country lay upon the other side of the grave. He was a most acute thinker-as he had need to be.

.... Those who are horrified at Mr. Darwin's theory, may comfort themselves with the assurance that, if we are descended from the ape, we have not descended so far as to preclude all hope of return.

.... There is more poison in aphorisms than in painted candy; but it is of a less seductive kind.

.... If it were as easy to invent a credible falsehood as it is to believe one, we should have little else in print. The mechanical construction of a falsehood is a matter of the gravest import.

.... There is just as much true pleasure in walloping one's own wife as in the sinful enjoyment of another man's right. Heaven gives to each man a wife, and intends that he shall cleave to her alone. To cleave is either to "split" or to "stick." To cleave to your wife is to split her with a stick.

.... A strong mind is more easily impressed than a weak one: you shall not as readily convince a fool that you are a philosopher, as a philosopher that you are a fool.

.... In our intercourse with men, their national peculiarities and customs are entitled to consideration. In addressing the common Frenchman take off your hat; in addressing the common Irishman make him take off his.

.... It is nearly always untrue to say of a man that he wishes to leave a great property behind him when he dies. Usually he would like to take it along.

.... Benevolence is as purely selfish as greed. No one would do a benevolent action if he knew it would entail remorse.

.... If cleanliness is next to godliness, it is a matter of unceasing wonder that, having gone to the extreme limit of the former, so many people manage to stop short exactly at the line of demarcation.

.... Most people have no more definite idea of liberty than that it consists in being compelled by law to do as they like.

.... Every man is at heart a brute, and the greatest injury you can put upon any one is to provoke him into displaying his nature. No gentleman ever forgives the man who makes him let out his beast.

.... The Psalmist never saw the seed of the righteous begging bread. In our day they sometimes request pennies for keeping the street-crossings in order.

.... When two wholly irreconcilable propositions are presented to the mind, the safest way is to thank Heaven that we are not like the unreasoning brutes, and believe both.

.... If every malefactor in the church were known by his face it would be necessary to prohibit the secular tongue from crying "stop thief." Otherwise the church bells could not be heard of a pleasant Sunday.

.... Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, because it is commonly employed by those from whom we do not expect it, and so passes for what it is not.

.... "If people only knew how foolish it is" to take their wine with a dash of prussic acid, it is probable that they would-prefer to take it with that addition.

.... "A man's honour," says a philosopher, "is the best protection he can have." Then most men might find a heartless oppressor in the predatory oyster.

.... The canary gets his name from the dog, an animal whom he looks down upon. We get a good many worse things than names from those beneath us; and they give us a bad name too.

.... Faith is the best evidence in the world; it reconciles contradictions and proves impossibilities. It is wonderfully developed in the blind.

.... He who undertakes an "Account of Idiots in All Ages" will find himself committed to the task of compiling most known biographies. Some future publisher will affix a life of the compiler.

.... Gratitude is regarded as a precious virtue, because tendered as a fair equivalent for any conceivable service.

.... A bad marriage is like an electric machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

.... The symbol of Charity should be a circle. It usually ends exactly where it begins-at home.

.... Most people redeem a promise as an angler takes in a trout; by first playing it with a good deal of line.

.... It is a grave mistake to suppose defaulters have no consciences. Some of them have been known, under favourable circumstances, to restore as much as ten per cent. of their plunder.

.... There is nothing so progressive as grief, and nothing so infectious as progress.