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YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.

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
Past
Certitude
Infancy
Manhood
Yesterday
Entire
Youth
Age

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
Ambrose Bierce
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Labor is one of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
Ambrose Bierce
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For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them.
Ambrose Bierce
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Die: To stop sinning suddenly.
Ambrose Bierce
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Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
Ambrose Bierce
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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.
Ambrose Bierce
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Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.
Ambrose Bierce
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HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.
Ambrose Bierce
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A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.
Ambrose Bierce
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Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
Ambrose Bierce
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OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment . . . . judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it.
Ambrose Bierce
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When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
Ambrose Bierce