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Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.

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
High
Affected
Mad
Madness
Independence
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Degrees
Intelligence
Curmudgeon
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.
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NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.
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CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
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A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.
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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
Ambrose Bierce
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Brain, v. [as in to brain]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly to dispel a source of error in an opponent.
Ambrose Bierce
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JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances . . . the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.
Ambrose Bierce
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TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.
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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OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.
Ambrose Bierce
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Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
Ambrose Bierce
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EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other-which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.
Ambrose Bierce
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Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
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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Fear has no brains it is an idiot.
Ambrose Bierce
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The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
Ambrose Bierce
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OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: O fudge!
Ambrose Bierce
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Book - Learning : The dunce's derisive term for all knowledge that transcends his own impertinent ignorance.
Ambrose Bierce
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When you doubt, abstain.
Ambrose Bierce