Related:

• TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.
  Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time....
• ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• Inventor, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers, and springs, and believes it civilization.
  -- Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary...
• Age, n.: That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit.
  -- Ambrose Bierce...
• ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president.
  A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting....