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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

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
Pretty
Heaven
Lying
Afterward
Time
Infancy
World
Begins
Soon
Childhood
Lies

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.
Ambrose Bierce
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Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection.
Ambrose Bierce
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Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
Ambrose Bierce
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PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
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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Habit: A shackle for the free.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
Ambrose Bierce
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Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce
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SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.
Ambrose Bierce
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EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fear has no brains it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.
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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Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.
Ambrose Bierce
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IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
Ambrose Bierce
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GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.
Ambrose Bierce