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Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

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
Virtue
Tomb
Death
Tombs
Acquired
Virtues
Showing
Retroactive
Effect
Inscription
Effects
Inscriptions
Dying
Epitaph

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Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
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Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
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PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.
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Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
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Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.
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PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. . . . not be confused with that of foreordination. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.
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Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man. The pig is taught by sermons and epistles / To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
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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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Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.
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Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
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Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.
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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.
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The best kind of onion soup is the simplest kind.
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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
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CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.
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REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.
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Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
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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.
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A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
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CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
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