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X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.

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
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
Ambrose Bierce
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PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.
Ambrose Bierce
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REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.
Ambrose Bierce
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Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Ambrose Bierce
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Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.
Ambrose Bierce
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Dance, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.
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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Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense.
Ambrose Bierce
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Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
Ambrose Bierce
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TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
Ambrose Bierce
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REACH, n. The radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide.
Ambrose Bierce
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WIDOW, n. A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one of the most marked features of his character.
Ambrose Bierce
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Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
Ambrose Bierce
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LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.
Ambrose Bierce
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A subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship . . . . [H]is master works for the means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.
Ambrose Bierce
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God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.
Ambrose Bierce