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An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
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
Men
Hammer
Hammers
Pocket
Picked
Commerce
Pockets
Tongue
Auctioneer
Business
Proclaims
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
Ambrose Bierce
Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo.
Ambrose Bierce
A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.
Ambrose Bierce
I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.
Ambrose Bierce
An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
Ambrose Bierce
Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
Ambrose Bierce
CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
Ambrose Bierce
Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think. Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.
Ambrose Bierce
RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them.
Ambrose Bierce
YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.
Ambrose Bierce
The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
Ambrose Bierce
Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
Ambrose Bierce
To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
Ambrose Bierce
RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
Ambrose Bierce
Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
Ambrose Bierce
Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose Bierce
Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.
Ambrose Bierce
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
Ambrose Bierce
Riot – A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.
Ambrose Bierce
Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable as, the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur..
Ambrose Bierce
