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LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he lost his election.

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
Thus
Election
Losing
Loss
Privation
Lost
Candidate
Sense
Defeated
Candidates
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
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Woman absent is woman dead.
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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.
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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
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NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of hands across the sea, and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night professions of eternal amity provide the nigh
Ambrose Bierce
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PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method . . . of obtaining money by false pretences [by] reading character in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false. . . for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word dupe.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn.
Ambrose Bierce
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It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce
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Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
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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moral, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.
Ambrose Bierce
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Adolescence: A stage between infancy and adultery.
Ambrose Bierce
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They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
Ambrose Bierce
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hybrid, n. A pooled issue.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.
Ambrose Bierce
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The god of the world's leading religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.
Ambrose Bierce