Ambrose Bierce
 

I recently have read a biography of Bierce. He did not have a happy life. That saddens me, because he wrote a few classic horror stories, like The Damned Thing.

I have the most complete edition of "The Devil's Dictionary" that I could find. If you want to know why they gave him the nickname "Bitter Bierce", here's his definition of the word "road": "Road. noun. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to stay, to where it is pointless to go."

Whenever I see someone describe something as "self-evident", I think of Bierce's definition:

Self-evident: adjective. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.

I mean, if a lot of people disagree with a statement, then it is self-evidently not self-evident.