Quote

USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

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
Book
Fashion
Reverence
Conventionality
First
Books
Decent
Imbued
Long
Hope
Third
Industrious
May
Thirds
Trinity
Persons
Produce
Usage
Person
Holy
Custom
Live
Second
Customs
Triad
Firsts
Writer
Literary
Triads

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A pessimist asked God for relief. Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness, said God. No, replied the petitioner, I wish you to create something that would justify them. The world is all created,said God, but you have overlooked something
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
J, n. A consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel . . . from a Latin verb, jacere, to throw, because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Finance is the art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager
Ambrose Bierce