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Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.
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
Called
Listener
Catching
Vocal
Listeners
Breath
Breaths
Competition
Conversation
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
Ambrose Bierce
me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.
Ambrose Bierce
WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Ambrose Bierce
OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
Ambrose Bierce
Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce
PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.
Ambrose Bierce
REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.
Ambrose Bierce
A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.
Ambrose Bierce
Immigrant: An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.
Ambrose Bierce
Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.
Ambrose Bierce
The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
Ambrose Bierce
A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Ambrose Bierce
Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Ambrose Bierce
Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting
Ambrose Bierce
KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for bliss. It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.
Ambrose Bierce
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.
Ambrose Bierce
Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.
Ambrose Bierce