Quote

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.

Ambrose Bierce

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Things
Confusion
Programme
Doctrine
Christendom
According
Programmes
Difference
Ink
Differences
Gore
Nothing
Confusing
Enough
Occur
Great
Confused
Predestination

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Riven and torn with cannon-shot, the trunks of the trees protruded bunches of splinters like hands, the fingers above the wound interlacing with those below.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he lost his election.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FOLLY, n. That gift and faculty divine whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Spring beckons! All things to the call respond the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
Ambrose Bierce