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ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.

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
Inroads
Kind
Injection
Amusement
Entertainment
Kindness
Whose
Short
Stop

More quotes by 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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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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A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.
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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Woman absent is woman dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.
Ambrose Bierce
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ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
Ambrose Bierce
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Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
Ambrose Bierce
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ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.
Ambrose Bierce
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K, n. A consonant originally precisely that of our H, but altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of [one of two lofty columns in] the great temple of Jarute.
Ambrose Bierce
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R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace, attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than reductus in pulvis.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
Ambrose Bierce
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Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere survivals - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
Ambrose Bierce
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applause, n. The echo of a platitude.
Ambrose Bierce
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DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.
Ambrose Bierce
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DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.
Ambrose Bierce
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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
Ambrose Bierce
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Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
Ambrose Bierce
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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