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RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.

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
May
Dutch
Keeping
Grass
Garden
Walk
Walks
Freedom

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.
Ambrose Bierce
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INK, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.
Ambrose Bierce
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Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
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Condole - to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
Ambrose Bierce
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REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.
Ambrose Bierce
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RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.
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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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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Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
Ambrose Bierce
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PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
Ambrose Bierce
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ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
Ambrose Bierce
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READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in dialect and humor in slang.
Ambrose Bierce
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What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
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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RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation. . . . Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy.
Ambrose Bierce
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I was born to poor because of honest parents.
Ambrose Bierce