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PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

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
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Statesmen
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Patriot
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PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.
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NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.
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Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
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HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.
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Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
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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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REFLECTION,n: An Action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter
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Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.
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.
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Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
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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Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
Ambrose Bierce
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Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
Ambrose Bierce
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A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Ambrose Bierce
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RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.
Ambrose Bierce
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applause, n. The echo of a platitude.
Ambrose Bierce
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OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment . . . . judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it.
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When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
Ambrose Bierce