Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
Ambrose BiercePICKANINNY, n. The young of the "Procyanthropos", or "Americanus dominans". It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.
Ambrose BiercePRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.
Ambrose BierceImmoral: Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If mans notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from and nowise dependent on, their consequences-then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.
Ambrose Bierce