Quote

AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

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
Lying
Islands
Retarded
Whether
Australia
Continent
Funny
Sea
Disputes
Country
South
Continents
Whose
Industrial
Among
Island
Geographers
Development
Unfortunate
Unspeakably
Humor
Commercial
Dispute

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce