SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred ...

SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar \
SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity. Its habit of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may also have commended it to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure it an equal reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.
 Ambrose Bierce

Quotes from the same author

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
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 Ambrose Bierce
Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
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 Ambrose Bierce
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.
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 Ambrose Bierce
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
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 Ambrose Bierce
An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
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 Ambrose Bierce