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Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.

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
Grave
Graves
Headless
Stone
Pitiless
Stones
Hens
Blind
Fever
Irrational
Fierce
Patriotism

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence an attribute of the critic.
Ambrose Bierce
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When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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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
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INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to - in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning.
Ambrose Bierce
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RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
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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Justice is a commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.
Ambrose Bierce
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CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.
Ambrose Bierce
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Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Ambrose Bierce
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No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
Ambrose Bierce
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Kiss. n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for bliss.
Ambrose Bierce
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HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
Ambrose Bierce
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Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
Ambrose Bierce
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Magic: (n) The art of converting superstition into coin.
Ambrose Bierce