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STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

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
Truth
Untrue
Commonly
Successfully
Narrative
Following
However
Story
Stories
Impeached

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
Ambrose Bierce
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Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
Ambrose Bierce
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Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
Ambrose Bierce
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BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.
Ambrose Bierce
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A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
Ambrose Bierce
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.
Ambrose Bierce
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The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon.
Ambrose Bierce
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POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
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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Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command
Ambrose Bierce
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Fear has no brains it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.
Ambrose Bierce
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What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
Ambrose Bierce
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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
Ambrose Bierce
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Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
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POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
Ambrose Bierce
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Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
Ambrose Bierce
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Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
Ambrose Bierce
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WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.
Ambrose Bierce
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If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.
Ambrose Bierce