Related:

• SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• REVELATION, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew.
  The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing....
• ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good.
  This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians -- may their souls be happy in Heaven!...
• IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• SALAMANDER, n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire
  later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile....
• UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house.
  Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse....
• BARRACK, n. A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear.
  In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey....
• Occident, n.: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient.
  It is largely inhabited by Christians, powerful sub-tribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce....