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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

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
Dust
Empty
Book
Erudition
Shaken
Skull
Skulls

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance... The Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.
Ambrose Bierce
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BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.
Ambrose Bierce
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If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.
Ambrose Bierce
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The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forebearance among men.
Ambrose Bierce
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OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
Ambrose Bierce
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plagiarism, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
Ambrose Bierce
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GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.
Ambrose Bierce
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Income is the natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability.
Ambrose Bierce
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Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.
Ambrose Bierce
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WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.
Ambrose Bierce
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ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
Ambrose Bierce
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Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
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