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HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.

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
Use
Abandoned
Tornadoes
Science
Certainty
Hurricane
Stills
Atmosphere
Hurricanes
Certain
Popular
Preferred
Cyclone
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Generally
Demonstration
Cyclones
Sea
Captains
Indies
West
Fashioned
Atmospheric
Common
Humour
Tornado

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
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PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
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Pantheism, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.
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The place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.
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The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.
Ambrose Bierce
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Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound.
Ambrose Bierce
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LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system - an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
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PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.
Ambrose Bierce
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Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce
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MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
Ambrose Bierce
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ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
Ambrose Bierce
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Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
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A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.
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Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce