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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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OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser triumph.
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.
Ambrose Bierce
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GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
Ambrose Bierce
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EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
Ambrose Bierce
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critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.
Ambrose Bierce
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ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
Ambrose Bierce
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PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.
Ambrose Bierce
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
Ambrose Bierce
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A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.
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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The god of the world's leading religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead.
Ambrose Bierce
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RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
Ambrose Bierce
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REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.
Ambrose Bierce
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Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
Ambrose Bierce
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MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.
Ambrose Bierce
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Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.
Ambrose Bierce