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Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

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
Comfortable
Permitted
Player
Beating
Game
Gambling
Modern
Insurance
Games
Table
Chance
Tables
Enjoy
Conviction
Ingenious
Men
Keeps
Provocative

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MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.
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Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.
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Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray big belly ache, heap God.'
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Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion in Constantinople, one who does.
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URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, I beg your pardon, and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.
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KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for bliss. It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.
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We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization.
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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
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RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
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To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.
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Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.
Ambrose Bierce
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CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.
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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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actually, adv. Perhaps possibly.
Ambrose Bierce
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MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.
Ambrose Bierce
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Happiness is lost by criticizing it sorrow by accepting it.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
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OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
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The sum of religion, says Pythagoras, is to be like him thou worshipest. Had Pythagoras lived in our day he would have seen his mistake. The sum of modern religion is to make him thou worshipest like unto thyself.
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