“Cannon, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.”

“Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

“Clarionet, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet -- two clarionets.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

“Words should be employed as the means, not as the end: language is the instrument, conviction is the work.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

“Barometer, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

“Tone is light in another shape. In music, instruments perform the functions of the colours employed in painting.”

Honoré de Balzac book Gambara

“No man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation.”

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891) Irish politician

“The arts have always transcended national boundaries as the haiku demonstrates.”

William J. Higginson (1938–2008) American writer

“Cannon his name,
Cannon his voice, he came.”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

“With liberalisation and globalisation, it seems to me, India's national boundaries have ceased to exist.”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul