Quote

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

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
Nation
Optional
Nations
Enforce
Thing
Permitted
Governed
Governing
Republic
Obedience
Authority

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly (Musca maledicta). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
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
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
NOVEL, n. A short story padded.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions where it can get a foothold it makes a stand where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
New York is too strenuous for me it gets on my nerves.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Gout, a physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient
Ambrose Bierce