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Ambrose Inspirational Quotes (1077)

Page 5 of 45
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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
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CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
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REAR, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.
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LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.
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LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
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PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
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MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.
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LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
Ambrose Bierce
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OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .
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URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, I beg your pardon, and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.
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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!
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REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.
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Duck-bill, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.
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Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic
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Nonsense, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.
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Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire
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REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
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ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.
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COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce
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