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Genius - to know without having learned to draw just conclusions from unknown premises to discern the soul of things.

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
Genius
Learned
Discern
Soul
Premises
Without
Conclusions
Things
Unknown
Conclusion
Draw
Draws

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science.
Ambrose Bierce
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MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
Ambrose Bierce
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MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.
Ambrose Bierce
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NIRVANA- In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.
Ambrose Bierce
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A chop is a piece of leather skillfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants.
Ambrose Bierce
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TRUCE, n. Friendship.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
Ambrose Bierce
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MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
Ambrose Bierce
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Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure
Ambrose Bierce
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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. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.
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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Twice – Once too often.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
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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OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser triumph.
Ambrose Bierce
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Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
Ambrose Bierce
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Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
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