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

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.
Ambrose Bierce
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An egotist is a person of low taste - more interested in himself than in me.
Ambrose Bierce
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Evolutionary biology is genuinely scientific, but more than that it opens the door to a world more marvellous than any Christian fundamentalist has ever read into the pages of the Bible.
Ambrose Bierce
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Molecule, n.: The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion.
Ambrose Bierce
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RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
Ambrose Bierce
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Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
Ambrose Bierce
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Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOVEL, n. A short story padded.
Ambrose Bierce
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UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
Ambrose Bierce
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FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.
Ambrose Bierce
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The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.
Ambrose Bierce
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The god of the world's leading religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.
Ambrose Bierce
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When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection thine own is open at thy feet.
Ambrose Bierce
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ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.
Ambrose Bierce
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A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.
Ambrose Bierce
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Christians and camels receive their burdens kneeling.
Ambrose Bierce
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FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
Ambrose Bierce