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EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.

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
Epigram
Short
Saying
Epigrams
Wisdom
Characterize
Sometimes
Verse
Verses
Sharp
Frequently
Acidity
Prose

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.
Ambrose Bierce
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Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
Ambrose Bierce
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Think twice before you speak to a friend in need
Ambrose Bierce
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New York is too strenuous for me it gets on my nerves.
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.
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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FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.
Ambrose Bierce
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COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
Ambrose Bierce
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Inexpedient: Not calculated to advance one's interests.
Ambrose Bierce
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That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity
Ambrose Bierce
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TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.
Ambrose Bierce
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repose, v.i. To cease from troubling.
Ambrose Bierce
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JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances . . . the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.
Ambrose Bierce
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FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
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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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
Ambrose Bierce