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
DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
Ambrose Bierce
CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet. In controversy with the facile tongue -- That bloodless warfare of the old and young -- So seek your adversary to engage That on himself he shall exhaust his rage, And, like a snake that's fastened to the ground, With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound. You ask me how this miracle is done? Adopt his own opinions, one by one, And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath He'll sweep them pitilessly from his path. Advance then gently all you wish to prove, Each proposition prefaced with, "As you've So well remarked," or, "As you wisely say, And I cannot dispute," or, "By the way, This view of it which, better far expressed, Runs through your argument." Then leave the rest To him, secure that he'll perform his trust And prove your views intelligent and just. Conmore Apel Brune
Ambrose Bierce
UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only. This important distinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not clear to the mediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it. Certain Lutherans, who affirmed the presence everywhere of Christ's body were known as Ubiquitarians. For this error they were doubtless damned, for Christ's body is present only in the eucharist, though that sacrament may be performed in more than one place simultaneously. In recent times ubiquity has not always been understood -- not even by Sir Boyle Roche, for example, who held that a man cannot be in two places at once unless he is a bird.
Ambrose Bierce
REFORM, v. A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.
Ambrose Bierce
EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and rose are languishing for a nibble at his _glutoeus maximus_.
Ambrose Bierce
TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
Ambrose Bierce
GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Ambrose Bierce
SATAN, n. One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. "There is one favor that I should like to ask," said he. "Name it." "Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws." "What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul -- you ask for the right to make his laws?" "Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself." It was so ordered.
Ambrose Bierce
PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.
Ambrose Bierce
DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.
Ambrose Bierce
MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.
Ambrose Bierce
ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
Ambrose Bierce
FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.
Ambrose Bierce
Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
ABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne. Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation. For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her: She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her. To History she'll be no royal riddle -- Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle. G.J.
Ambrose Bierce
SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans are "endowed by their Creator" with abundant vice and folly, it is not generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent. Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung In the dead language of a mummy's tongue, For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well -- Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell. Had it been such as consecrates the Bible Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel. Barney Stims
Ambrose Bierce
Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
Ambrose Bierce
EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream, Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem: From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: "O fudge!"
Ambrose Bierce
LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.
Ambrose Bierce
JEWS-HARP, n. An unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.
Ambrose Bierce
SYMBOL, n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" -- things which having no longer any utility continue to exist because we have inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the dead. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
Ambrose Bierce
MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.
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. When the world was young and Man was new, And everything was pleasant, Distinctions Nature never drew 'Mongst kings and priest and peasant. We're not that way at present, Save here in this Republic, where We have that old regime, For all are kings, however bare Their backs, howe'er extreme Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice To accept the tyrant of his party's choice. A citizen who would not vote, And, therefore, was detested, Was one day with a tarry coat (With feathers backed and breasted) By patriots invested. "It is your duty," cried the crowd, "Your ballot true to cast For the man o' your choice." He humbly bowed, And explained his wicked past: "That's what I very gladly would have done, Dear patriots, but he has never run." Apperton Duke
Ambrose Bierce
REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin. Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell, You will repent and join the Church, Parnell? How needless! -- Nick will keep you off the coals And add you to the woes of other souls. Jomater Abemy
Ambrose Bierce
