Quote

Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.

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
Interior
Convulsion
Interiors
Intermittent
Producing
Infectious
Features
Inarticulate
Noise
Incurable
Laughter
Noises
Though
Accompanied
Distortion

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
Die: To stop sinning suddenly.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MAJESTY, n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
K, n. A consonant originally precisely that of our H, but altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of [one of two lofty columns in] the great temple of Jarute.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
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
Immoral is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
resolute, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A lottery is a tax on stupidity.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
When you doubt, abstain.
Ambrose Bierce