Quote

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

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
Upon
Debtors
Forgetful
Bestowed
Forgetfulness
Compensation
Debt
Gift
Conscience
Destitution

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Kindness n: A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PIG, n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence an attribute of the critic.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber they fertilize.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them.
Ambrose Bierce