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Aphorist Inspirational Quotes (5897)

Page 9 of 246
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LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
Ambrose Bierce
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OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
Ambrose Bierce
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BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
Ambrose Bierce
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PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
Ambrose Bierce
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There's no free will, says the philosopher To hang is most unjust. There is no free will, assents the officer We hang because we must.
Ambrose Bierce
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If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
Ambrose Bierce
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True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked Unknown, and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in honoring the memory of him of whom no memory remains to honor but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
Ambrose Bierce
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SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.
Ambrose Bierce
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When in Rome, do as Rome does.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
Ambrose Bierce
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Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.
Ambrose Bierce
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FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
Ambrose Bierce
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What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
Ambrose Bierce
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TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.
Ambrose Bierce
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CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
Ambrose Bierce
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NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.
Ambrose Bierce
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Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference
Ambrose Bierce
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GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.
Ambrose Bierce
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Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered.
Ambrose Bierce
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A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
Ambrose Bierce
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HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.
Ambrose Bierce
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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
Ambrose Bierce
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