Quote

A subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship . . . . [H]is master works for the means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.

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
Worship
Tail
Wags
Masters
Tails
Seasoned
Works
Idle
Overflow
Means
Designed
Surplus
Look
Catch
Tolerant
Looks
Recognition
Purchase
Subsidiary
Mean
Master
Deity
Wherewith
World
Dog
Deities
Anachronism

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A man is known by the company he organizes.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Woman absent is woman dead.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A revolution is a violent change of mismanagement.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
I was born to poor because of honest parents.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Dance, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
Ambrose Bierce