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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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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
Simplicity
Pleased
Long
Study
Engaging
Quality
Attain
Practice
Severe
Upon
Admiration
Fancy
Candid
Certain
Male
Resembles
Young
Males
Admiring
Women

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
Ambrose Bierce
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WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
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CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
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An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.
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Twice – Once too often.
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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aim, n. The task we set our wishes to.
Ambrose Bierce
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URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, I beg your pardon, and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.
Ambrose Bierce
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A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
Ambrose Bierce
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recollect, v. To recall with additions something not previously known.
Ambrose Bierce
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Strive not for singularity in dress Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style.
Ambrose Bierce
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Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.
Ambrose Bierce
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A penny saved is a penny to squander.
Ambrose Bierce
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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt is the father of invention.
Ambrose Bierce
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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. The Mad Philosopher, 1697
Ambrose Bierce
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The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two.
Ambrose Bierce
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UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
Ambrose Bierce