Quote

REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

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
Opinion
Proposed
Public
Proposal
Law
Submission
Learn
Legislation
Nonsense
Popular
Vote
Referendum
Learning
Referendums

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection thine own is open at thy feet.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for bliss. It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.
Ambrose Bierce