Bierce des Tages

Wer Ambrose Bierce‘ „The Devil’s Dictionary“ oder zu deutsch „Wörterbuch des Teufels“ (noch) nicht kennt, der sollte schnellsten seinem On-oder-Offline-Buchhändler des Vertrauens einen Besuch abstatten. Der Mann hat die Bedeutung des Wortes Satire auf den nächsten Level getrieben, seine folgende Definition des „Deppen“, die ich grad über die Laff-a-Day Mailingliste hereinbekommen habe, erinnert wieder mal an den guten alten Kyniker:

Fool, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude, and the circle of sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war–founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchial and republican government. He is from everlasting to everlasting–such as creation’s dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being. His grandmotherly hand has warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man’s evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization.