Dictionary of the Devil

There exists another Dictionnaire of the Devil , by Roland Villeneuve. It is a treaty of occultism.

The Dictionnaire of the Devil is a collection of 998 definitions humorous and cynical 1881 with 1906 writes by Ambrose Bierce.

Published by bits in the newspapers during more than twenty years, its final version left in 1911. Collecting a success mitigated at its exit, in full period of optimism - following the American Civil War - the book had especially a posthumous recognition.

Its first French translation goes back to 1955. It is translated by Jacques Papy, and comprises a foreword of Jean Cocteau. Nowadays, the most popular translation is that of Bernad Sallé, going back to 1989.

Some quotations

Nonsense : Assertion obviously incompatible with its own opinion.
Armor : Kind of clothing worn by that which takes a blacksmith for tailor.
Corpse : End product of which we are the raw material.
Clarinet : Instrument of torture used by a person who has cotton in the ears. There are two instruments which are worse than a clarinet - two clarinets.
Cynical : Uncouth individual whose deformed vision sees the things as they are, and not as they should be.
Writings : Crowned books of our holy religion, not to confuse with the profane and untrue accounts on which all the other beliefs are founded.
Scholarship : Dust fallen from a book in an empty cranium.
Oyster : Sticky mollusc in the shape of spittle which the civilized men are enough intrepid to eat without him to remove the entrails.
To slander : To make the portrait of a man as it is, when it is not there.
Minister : Civil servant equipped with a very great capacity and a very small responsibility.
Patience : Minor form of despair, disguised in virtue.
Price : Value of an object, plus a reasonable sum for the wear undergone by the conscience by asking it.
Bore : Nobody who speaks when you wish that she listen.
Sincere : Dumb man and illiterate.
Witch : 1 Horrible and pushing back old woman, in perverse activity with the devil. 2 Beautiful and attracting young graduate, whose perverse activities exceed the devil.
Telephone : Invention of the devil which cancels some of the advantages to maintain remotely a person unpleasant.
Violin : Instrument which titillates the human ears by the friction of a tail of a horse on the bowels of a cat.

See too

References

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