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
Worse
Two
Clarinet
Persons
Operated
Person
Cotton
Instrument
Torture
Instruments
Ears

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
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
Image
Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. . . . not be confused with that of foreordination. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
Ambrose Bierce