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 442 thoughts of Ambrose Bierce
Marriage is the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Ambrose Bierce
Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
Ambrose Bierce
Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.
Ambrose Bierce
JEALOUS, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Ambrose Bierce
Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
Ambrose Bierce
Conservative - a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word _simulation_ is from _simia_, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for his model _Simia audibilis_ (or _Pithecanthropos stentor_) -- the ape that howls. The actor apes a man -- at least in shape; The opera performer apes and ape.
Ambrose Bierce
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Ambrose Bierce
RED-SKIN, n. A North American Indian, whose skin is not red -- at least not on the outside.
Ambrose Bierce
DISABUSE, v.t. The present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.
Ambrose Bierce
RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means good and wise.
Ambrose Bierce
BENEFACTOR, n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without, however, materially affecting the price, which is still within the means of all.
Ambrose Bierce
ALONE, adj. In bad company. In contact, lo! the flint and steel, By spark and flame, the thought reveal That he the metal, she the stone, Had cherished secretly alone. Booley Fito
Ambrose Bierce
OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was once more common than it is now. Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were frequently seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally driven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a woman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a hundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leap higher than a church spire he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in Cromwell's army exorcised a soldier's obsessing devil by throwing the soldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface. The soldier, unfortunately, did not.
Ambrose Bierce
LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time considered the seat of life; hence its name -- liver, the thing we live with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg _pate_.
Ambrose Bierce
ERUDITION, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull. So wide his erudition's mighty span, He knew Creation's origin and plan And only came by accident to grief -- He thought, poor man, 'twas right to be a thief. Romach Pute
Ambrose Bierce
GORGON, n. The Gorgon was a maiden bold Who turned to stone the Greeks of old That looked upon her awful brow. We dig them out of ruins now, And swear that workmanship so bad Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.
Ambrose Bierce
HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools. Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown 'Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 'twere known, Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide, Wherein he blundered and how much he lied. Salder Bupp
Ambrose Bierce
REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
Ambrose Bierce
CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.
Ambrose Bierce
Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
Ambrose Bierce
