Quote

CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.

Ambrose Bierce

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Poet
Match
Wager
Lying
Isolated
Wagers
Write
Poets
Cutters
Writing
Target
Suburban
Spots
Cemetery
Stone
Spell
Stones
Spells
Lies
Spot
Mourners

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
K, n. A consonant originally precisely that of our H, but altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of [one of two lofty columns in] the great temple of Jarute.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
applause, n. The echo of a platitude.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Mad adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves at odds with the majority in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TRUCE, n. Friendship.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
Ambrose Bierce