Quote

Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

Ambrose Bierce

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Optimistic
Optimism
Doctrine
White
Black
Proponent
Optimist

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
Mausoleum, n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both - as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Liar: A lawyer with a roving commission.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REDEMPTION, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned . . . . whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Men who expect universal peace through invention of destructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who, noting the improvement of agricultural implements, should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument as, He presided at the piccolo.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
To seek a justification for a decision already made.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
predicament, n. The wage of consistency.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Age is provident because the less future we have the more we fear it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
MAGNITUDE, n. Size [that is] purely relative. If everything in the universe were increased 1,000 diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Introduction - a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman.
Ambrose Bierce