Related:

• REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.
  In a republic, the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to....
• MALEFACTOR, n. The chief factor in the progress of the human race.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music.
  The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization....
• ACCORD, n. Harmony. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• IMPUNITY, n. Wealth. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• TRUCE, n. Friendship. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary
• TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details.
  Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice....
• PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune.
  The plague as we of to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness....
• EMANCIPATION, n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself.
  He was a slave: at word he went and came; His iron collar cut him to the bone....