Quote

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

Ambrose Bierce

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ambrose Bierce
Born: 1842
Born: June 24
Aphorist
Journalist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Meigs County
Ohio
Dod Grile
William Herman
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Identity
Deadly
Example
Italian
Language
Poison
Beautiful
Lady
Two
Tongue
Essential
Tongues
Essentials
Striking
English
Reincarnation

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Scriptures - The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a crowned head, although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.
Ambrose Bierce