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Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

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
Wells
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Borrow
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Friendship
Slight
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Objects
Acquaintance
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Poor
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Persons
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Person
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Lend

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.
Ambrose Bierce
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Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure
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Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
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renown, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame - a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt is the father of invention.
Ambrose Bierce
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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self-esteem, n. An erroneous appraisal.
Ambrose Bierce
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Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.
Ambrose Bierce
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TRUCE, n. Friendship.
Ambrose Bierce
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When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
Ambrose Bierce
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Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.
Ambrose Bierce
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Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
Ambrose Bierce
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Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
Ambrose Bierce