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BRANDY, n. A cordial composed on one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan.

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
Hell
Lightning
Four
Bloody
Clarified
Death
Grave
Cordial
Two
Satan
Brandy
Part
Graves
Liquor
Alcohol
Remorse
Murder
Composed
Parts
Thunder

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.
Ambrose Bierce
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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Bierce
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ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
Ambrose Bierce
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BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker.
Ambrose Bierce
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ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.
Ambrose Bierce
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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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PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
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We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
Ambrose Bierce
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INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
Ambrose Bierce
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Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.
Ambrose Bierce
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DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.
Ambrose Bierce
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RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.
Ambrose Bierce
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Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense.
Ambrose Bierce
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RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.
Ambrose Bierce
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ZEUS /n./ The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
Ambrose Bierce
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The sum of religion, says Pythagoras, is to be like him thou worshipest. Had Pythagoras lived in our day he would have seen his mistake. The sum of modern religion is to make him thou worshipest like unto thyself.
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