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FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

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
Small
Business
Annexation
Way
Sanctifying
Conqueror
Magnitude
Merit
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
Ambrose Bierce
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The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
Ambrose Bierce
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There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.
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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INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.
Ambrose Bierce
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If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
Ambrose Bierce
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According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians.
Ambrose Bierce
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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Bierce
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An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.
Ambrose Bierce
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Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
Ambrose Bierce
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Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
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April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
Ambrose Bierce
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The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
Ambrose Bierce
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Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.
Ambrose Bierce
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The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.
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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VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.
Ambrose Bierce