Edible – good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm. – Ambrose Bierce
Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. – Ambrose Bierce
Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due. – Ambrose Bierce
Destiny: A tyrants authority for crime and a fools excuse for failure. – Ambrose Bierce
It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows, listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning. – Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, Chapter XLII