Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce American satirist, critic, short story writer, editor and journalist. He is perhaps most famous for his serialized mock lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary, in which, over the years, he scathed American culture and accepted wisdom by pointing out alternate, more practical definitions for common words.
Found 452 thoughts of Ambrose Bierce
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
Ambrose Bierce
IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.
Ambrose Bierce
TOMB, n. The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be innocently "glened" as soon as its occupant is done "smellynge," the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has been greatly dignified.
Ambrose Bierce
Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
Ambrose Bierce
HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. According to Professor Howison, of the California State University, Hebrews are heathens. "The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison. He's A Christian philosopher. I'm A scurril agnostical chap, if you please, Addicted too much to the crime Of religious discussion in my rhyme. Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree On a _modus vivendi_ -- not they! -- Yet Heaven has had the designing of me, And I haven't been reared in a way To joy in the thick of the fray. For this of my creed is the soul and the gist, And the truth of it I aver: Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist, And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er -- And I'm down upon him or her! Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin Toleration -- that's all very well, But a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin, And he's running -- I know by the smell -- A secret and personal Hell! Bissell Gip
Ambrose Bierce
BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given. Who is that, father? A mendicant, child, Haggard, morose, and unaffable -- wild! See how he glares through the bars of his cell! With Citizen Mendicant all is not well. Why did they put him there, father? Because Obeying his belly he struck at the laws. His belly? Oh, well, he was starving, my boy -- A state in which, doubtless, there's little of joy. No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry Was "Bread!" ever "Bread!" What's the matter with pie? With little to wear, he had nothing to sell; To beg was unlawful -- improper as well. Why didn't he work? He would even have done that, But men said: "Get out!" and the State remarked: "Scat!" I mention these incidents merely to show That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low. Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou, But for trifles -- Pray what did bad Mendicant do? Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack And tuck out the belly that clung to his back. Is that _all_ father dear? There's little to tell: They sent him to jail, and they'll send him to -- well, The company's better than here we can boast, And there's -- Bread for the needy, dear father? Um -- toast. Atka Mip
Ambrose Bierce
Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
Ambrose Bierce
SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones. The devil casting a seine of lace, (With precious stones 'twas weighted) Drew it into the landing place And its contents calculated. All souls of women were in that sack -- A draft miraculous, precious! But ere he could throw it across his back They'd all escaped through the meshes. Baruch de Loppis
Ambrose Bierce
MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. From the Latin _mens_, a fact unknown to that honest shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor over the way had displayed the motto "_Mens conscia recti_," emblazoned his own front with the words "Men's, women's and children's conscia recti."
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PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like _caries_ and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.
Ambrose Bierce
LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
Ambrose Bierce
RAZOR, n. An instrument used by the Caucasian to enhance his beauty, by the Mongolian to make a guy of himself, and by the Afro-American to affirm his worth.
Ambrose Bierce
PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of foreordination, which means that all things are programmed, but does not affirm their occurrence, that being only an implication from other doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore. With the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a reverent belief in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.
Ambrose Bierce
Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Ambrose Bierce
RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character. Sharp, irresistible by mail or shield, By guard unparried as by flight unstayed, O serviceable Rumor, let me wield Against my enemy no other blade. His be the terror of a foe unseen, His the inutile hand upon the hilt, And mine the deadly tongue, long, slender, keen, Hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt. So shall I slay the wretch without a blow, Spare me to celebrate his overthrow, And nurse my valor for another foe. Joel Buxter
Ambrose Bierce
Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce
Clergyman, n. - A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.
Ambrose Bierce
ROUNDHEAD, n. A member of the Parliamentarian party in the English civil war -- so called from his habit of wearing his hair short, whereas his enemy, the Cavalier, wore his long. There were other points of difference between them, but the fashion in hair was the fundamental cause of quarrel. The Cavaliers were royalists because the king, an indolent fellow, found it more convenient to let his hair grow than to wash his neck. This the Roundheads, who were mostly barbers and soap-boilers, deemed an injury to trade, and the royal neck was therefore the object of their particular indignation. Descendants of the belligerents now wear their hair all alike, but the fires of animosity enkindled in that ancient strife smoulder to this day beneath the snows of British civility.
Ambrose Bierce
CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.
Ambrose Bierce
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel. That dueling's a gentlemanly vice I hold; and wish that it had been my lot To live my life out in some favored spot -- Some country where it is considered nice To split a rival like a fish, or slice A husband like a spud, or with a shot Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot And ready to be put upon the ice. Some miscreants there are, whom I do long To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners, I seem to see them now -- a mighty throng. It looks as if to challenge _me_ they came, Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners! Xamba Q. Dar
Ambrose Bierce
MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration. "In a multitude of consellors there is wisdom," saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere -- as well say that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.
Ambrose Bierce
RESPLENDENT, adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade. The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet- and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them. "Chronicles of the Classes"
Ambrose Bierce
ENCOMIAST, n. A special (but not particular) kind of liar.
Ambrose Bierce
EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other -- which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog.
Ambrose Bierce
