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Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
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
Upon
Convent
Wish
Nun
Place
Idleness
Women
Meditate
Leisure
Retirement
Judging
Sin
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
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
CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
Ambrose Bierce
HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
Ambrose Bierce
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.
Ambrose Bierce
Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
Ambrose Bierce
Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.
Ambrose Bierce
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.
Ambrose Bierce
Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.
Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.
Ambrose Bierce
VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
Ambrose Bierce
SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose having a divine character inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions as... the Cow in India the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.
Ambrose Bierce
Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
Ambrose Bierce
WIDOW, n. A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one of the most marked features of his character.
Ambrose Bierce
Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Ambrose Bierce
Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere survivals - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
Ambrose Bierce
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
PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
Ambrose Bierce
TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.
Ambrose Bierce
DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.
Ambrose Bierce
MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter (see Molecule). The monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation - containing all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher . .
Ambrose Bierce
