The Fool

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, omniscience,
omnipotent. He it was who invented letters,
printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the
telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the
sciences. He created patriotism and taught the
nations war -- founded theology, philosophy, law,
medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical
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 was 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.
--Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary