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MULTITUDE, n. A crowd the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.

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
Crowds
Object
Statesman
Objects
Adoration
Source
Statesmen
Virtue
Multitude
Wisdom
Multitudes
Political
Republic
Crowd

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.
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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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
Ambrose Bierce
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MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.
Ambrose Bierce
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Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
Ambrose Bierce
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Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.
Ambrose Bierce
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COMMENDATION n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resembles but do not equal our own.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
Ambrose Bierce
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Congratulations is the civility of envy.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
Ambrose Bierce
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The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forebearance among men.
Ambrose Bierce
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SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
Ambrose Bierce
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PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.
Ambrose Bierce
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Quill: An instrument of torture yielded by a goose and commonly weilded by as ass.
Ambrose Bierce
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ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.
Ambrose Bierce
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ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination . . .
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