Quote

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

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
Person
Cotton
Instrument
Torture
Instruments
Ears
Worse
Two
Clarinet
Persons
Operated

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LINEN, n. A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Duck-bill, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Cribbage, n. A substitute for conversation among those to whom nature has denied ideas.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Inexpedient: Not calculated to advance one's interests.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
Ambrose Bierce