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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

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
Sense
Exemption
Contrast
Pity
Inspired
Failure
Failing

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To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.
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A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
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Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals.
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KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a crowned head, although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
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LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper . . . the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species.
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Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
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LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.
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REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.
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A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.
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Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Introduction - a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.
Ambrose Bierce
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PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method . . . of obtaining money by false pretences [by] reading character in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false. . . for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word dupe.
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Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.
Ambrose Bierce
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FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.
Ambrose Bierce
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INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both - as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
Ambrose Bierce
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War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
Ambrose Bierce
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BRANDY, n. A cordial composed on one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan.
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Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
Ambrose Bierce