THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY 

Ambrose Bierce

T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

 

Telephone - An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance

 

Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance

 

Twice - Once too often

 

Ultimatum - In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions

 

Virtues - Certain abstentions

 

War - A by-product of the arts of peace

 

Weather -  A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned

X - A needless letter serving only to make spelling more difficult

 

Year - A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments 

Yesterday - The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age

 

Yoke - A word that defines the matrimonial situation with precision, point, and poignancy 

Youth - The period of Possibility

 

 Zeal - A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced