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PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

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
Language
Action
Pantomime
Form
Disagreeable
Stories
Dramatic
Without
Told
Play
Violence
Least
Story

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.
Ambrose Bierce
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A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Ambrose Bierce
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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
Ambrose Bierce
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DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.
Ambrose Bierce
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Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
Ambrose Bierce
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MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.
Ambrose Bierce
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adore, v.t. To venerate expectantly.
Ambrose Bierce
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Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
Ambrose Bierce
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Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
Ambrose Bierce
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Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere survivals - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.
Ambrose Bierce
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MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.
Ambrose Bierce
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self-esteem, n. An erroneous appraisal.
Ambrose Bierce
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ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
Ambrose Bierce
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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. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.
Ambrose Bierce