Delightfully Defined

Patience, n.
A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

Patriot, n.
One to whom interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

Patriotism, n.
Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

Peace, n.
In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

Plagiarism, n.
A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

Plan, v.t.
To bother about the best method od accomplishing an accidental result.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.

Platitude, n.
The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demitasse of milk-and-morality. The Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary.