Bitter Bierce, Again

As I noted in the comments of "Bitter Bierce," I'm providing a second installment of my favorites from the rest of The Devil's Dictionary -- N to Z.

Enjoy:

• Nectar, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.
• Noise, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
• Optimism, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
• Overeat, v. To dine.
• Patriot, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
• Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone 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.
• Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
• Rational, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
• Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
• Rumor, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
• Sauce, n. The infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.
• Saw, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth. A man in known by the company that he organizes... Think twice before you speak to a friend in need... He laughs best who laughs least... Of two evils choose to be the least... Strike while you employer has a big contract...
• Slang, n. The grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.
• Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
• Turkey, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.
• Valor, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's hope...
• Vote, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and wreck of his country.
• Weather, n. The climate of an hour. 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. The setting of official weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.
• Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
• Zeus, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by some modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have have penetrated a considerable distance into the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names.