Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose BierceREFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.
Ambrose BierceDIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
Ambrose Bierce