Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
Ambrose BierceOcean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
Ambrose BierceVITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
Ambrose BierceMESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.
Ambrose BiercePOTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific-and without science we are as the snakes and toads.
Ambrose Bierce