Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an old man. Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an old book.
Ambrose Bierce
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Offensive
Popular
General
Discredited
Taste
Lapse
Stage
Inefficiency
Book
Lapses
Men
Inconsistent
Time
Usefulness
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
Ambrose Bierce
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Ambrose Bierce
RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
Ambrose Bierce
An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.
Ambrose Bierce
PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.
Ambrose Bierce
LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
Ambrose Bierce
Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.
Ambrose Bierce
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
Take not God's name in vain select a time when it will have effect.
Ambrose Bierce
The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.
Ambrose Bierce
RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.
Ambrose Bierce
A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa
Ambrose Bierce
ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
Ambrose Bierce
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
REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
Ambrose Bierce
HEART, n. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments . . . . It is now known that sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.
Ambrose Bierce
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
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
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Ambrose Bierce
