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UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

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
Exhaustively
Horse
Expounded
Laws
Locke
Lived
Kant
Law
Rode
Understanding
Cerebral
House
Enables
Nature
Secretion
Life
Roof

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Mad adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves at odds with the majority in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.
Ambrose Bierce
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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
Ambrose Bierce
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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
Ambrose Bierce
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Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.
Ambrose Bierce
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Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.
Ambrose Bierce
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God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.
Ambrose Bierce
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Scriptures - The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
Ambrose Bierce
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Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.
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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Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
Ambrose Bierce
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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. The Mad Philosopher, 1697
Ambrose Bierce
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GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.
Ambrose Bierce
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COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.
Ambrose Bierce
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Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts - guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
Ambrose Bierce
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Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
Ambrose Bierce
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REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.
Ambrose Bierce
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Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.
Ambrose Bierce
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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