When God had finished this terrestrial frame
And all things else, with or without a name,
The Nothing that remained within His hand
Said: “Make me into something fine and grand,
Thine angels to amuse and entertain.”
God heard and made it into human brain.
- Bierce: Epigrams
- Whose dead body is that?
- Credulity’s.
- By whom was he slain?
- Credulity.
- Ah, suicide.
- No, surfeit. He dined at the table of Science, and swallowed all that was set before him.
- Bierce: Epigrams
- Where goest thou, Ignorance?
- To fortify the mind of a maiden against a peril.
- I am going thy way. My name is Knowledge.
- Scoundrel! Thou art the peril.
- Bierce: Epigrams
O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain
To get by giving what you lost by gain.
With every gift you do but swell the cloud
Of witnesses against you, swift and loud—
Accomplices who turn and swear you split
Your life: half robber and half hypocrite.
You’re least unsafe when most intact you hold
Your curst allotment of dishonest gold.
- Bierce: Epigrams
