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Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

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
Death
Whereby
Groans
Strengthen
Deepens
Funeral
Doubles
Suicide
Undertaker
Grief
Expenditure
Tears
Pageant
Dead
Enriching
Respect
Expenditures
Attest

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
Ambrose Bierce
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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of hands across the sea, and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night professions of eternal amity provide the nigh
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
Ambrose Bierce
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Strive not for singularity in dress Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style.
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.
Ambrose Bierce
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When in Rome, do as Rome does.
Ambrose Bierce
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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
Ambrose Bierce
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MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
Ambrose Bierce
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Adolescence: A stage between infancy and adultery.
Ambrose Bierce
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A revolution is a violent change of mismanagement.
Ambrose Bierce
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Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.
Ambrose Bierce
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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
Ambrose Bierce
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The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.
Ambrose Bierce
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NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
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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REPLICA, n. A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original. It is so called to distinguish it from a copy, which is made by another artist. When the two are mae with equal skill the replica is the more valuable, for it is suppose
Ambrose Bierce
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If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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Contempt the feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.
Ambrose Bierce