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diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
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
Country
Diplomats
Diplomacy
Sarcastic
Patriotic
Lying
Art
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
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
OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
Ambrose Bierce
IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
Ambrose Bierce
MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.
Ambrose Bierce
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
Ambrose Bierce
Riven and torn with cannon-shot, the trunks of the trees protruded bunches of splinters like hands, the fingers above the wound interlacing with those below.
Ambrose Bierce
Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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
PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.
Ambrose Bierce
Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
Ambrose Bierce
Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
Ambrose Bierce
A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.
Ambrose Bierce
Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.
Ambrose Bierce
As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.
Ambrose Bierce
An egotist is a person of low taste - more interested in himself than in me.
Ambrose Bierce
LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper . . . the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species.
Ambrose Bierce
HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
Ambrose Bierce
LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject as an editor by not writing about it.
Ambrose Bierce
It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce
A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
Ambrose Bierce