Quote

A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

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
Dead
Turtle
Form
Turtles
Find
Shell
Long
Shells
Leech
Attachment
Deems
Creature
Leeches
Fresh
Penetrated
Creatures
Expedient

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.
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MONSIGNOR- A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.
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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I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
Ambrose Bierce
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Brain, v. [as in to brain]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly to dispel a source of error in an opponent.
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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ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
Ambrose Bierce
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Immigrant: An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument as, He presided at the piccolo.
Ambrose Bierce
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OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession it meant own, and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.
Ambrose Bierce
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MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.
Ambrose Bierce
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REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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War: A by-product of the arts of peace.
Ambrose Bierce
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When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.
Ambrose Bierce