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Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

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
Ambitious
Combustible
Ready
Illuminate
Name
Scoundrels
Names
Torch
Torches
Rubbish
Patriotic
Patriotism

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.
Ambrose Bierce
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EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.
Ambrose Bierce
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FORCE, n. Force is but might, the teacher said p/ That definition's just./ The boy said naught but throught instead,/ Remembering his pounded head:/ Force is not might but must!
Ambrose Bierce
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The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
Ambrose Bierce
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EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
Ambrose Bierce
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SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
Ambrose Bierce
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Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Ambrose Bierce
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HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
Ambrose Bierce
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A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Ambrose Bierce
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WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
Ambrose Bierce
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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.
Ambrose Bierce
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Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
Ambrose Bierce
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Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray big belly ache, heap God.'
Ambrose Bierce
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TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
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Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
Ambrose Bierce