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Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think. Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.

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
Matter
Mind
Think
Thinking
Secreted
Apparatus
Mysterious
Brain
Form

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Ambrose Bierce
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According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians.
Ambrose Bierce
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GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection.
Ambrose Bierce
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Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions where it can get a foothold it makes a stand where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
Ambrose Bierce
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CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, Every man his own horse.
Ambrose Bierce
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POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
Ambrose Bierce
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Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
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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There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
Ambrose Bierce
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Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.
Ambrose Bierce
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LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject as an editor by not writing about it.
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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Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
Ambrose Bierce