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

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
Ambrose Bierce
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resolute, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
Ambrose Bierce
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MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
Ambrose Bierce
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Human nature is pretty well balanced for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.
Ambrose Bierce
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FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs
Ambrose Bierce
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The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
Ambrose Bierce
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Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
Ambrose Bierce
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Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
Ambrose Bierce
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Male, A member of the unconsidered or negligible gender. The male of the human race is commonly known to the female as Mere Man. The Genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.
Ambrose Bierce
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Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind! Age backward, for nothing is before.
Ambrose Bierce
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They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
Ambrose Bierce
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RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
Ambrose Bierce
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PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance... The Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.
Ambrose Bierce
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Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue.
Ambrose Bierce
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REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
Ambrose Bierce