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Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

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
Leaving
Intellectual
Humorist
Humor
Spoils
Literature
Cookery
American
Humorists
Spoil
Salt
Wit

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When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection thine own is open at thy feet.
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PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method . . . of obtaining money by false pretences [by] reading character in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false. . . for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word dupe.
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PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
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A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.
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Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
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LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
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Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
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Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.
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A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.
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DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.
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Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts - guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
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OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
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Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.
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NOVEL, n. A short story padded.
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Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.
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I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.
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Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
Ambrose Bierce
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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. The Mad Philosopher, 1697
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me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.
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In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation.
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