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Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.

Ambrose Bierce

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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
Manners
Etiquette
Politeness
Polite
Hypocrisy
Acceptable

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.
Ambrose Bierce
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CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
Ambrose Bierce
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GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an author, there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.
Ambrose Bierce
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An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
Ambrose Bierce
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RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.
Ambrose Bierce
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Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.
Ambrose Bierce
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A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.
Ambrose Bierce
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Loquacity, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.
Ambrose Bierce
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Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.
Ambrose Bierce
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Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.
Ambrose Bierce
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PALM, n. A species of tree . . . of which the familiar itching palm (Palma hominis) is most widely distributed . . . . This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
Ambrose Bierce
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Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Ambrose Bierce
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LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods.
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.
Ambrose Bierce
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CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.
Ambrose Bierce