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REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.

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
Qualities
Work
Wisdom
Holding
Quality
Skin
Upon
Skins
Read
Bones
Truth
Review
Firsts
Although
Bone
Book
Neither
Reviews
First
Doubt

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
Ambrose Bierce
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HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.
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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PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
Ambrose Bierce
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POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.
Ambrose Bierce
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FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.
Ambrose Bierce
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To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.
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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PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.
Ambrose Bierce
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RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
Ambrose Bierce
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Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.
Ambrose Bierce
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Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.
Ambrose Bierce