Related:

• Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
  -- Ambrose Bierce...
• CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• 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....
• HALO, n. Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body
  but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus," a somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and saints....
• PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
  It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne....
• REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads.
  The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm....
• MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment.
  He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals....
• HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...