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GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

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
Good
Frenchmen
Humour
Machine
Shoulders
Machines
Science
Frenchman
Makes
Guillotine
Reason
Shrug

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.
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One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
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UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of hands across the sea, and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night professions of eternal amity provide the nigh
Ambrose Bierce
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BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
Ambrose Bierce
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Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered.
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If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting
Ambrose Bierce
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A revolution is a violent change of mismanagement.
Ambrose Bierce
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Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
Ambrose Bierce
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ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
Ambrose Bierce
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OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser triumph.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.
Ambrose Bierce
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A penny saved is a penny to squander.
Ambrose Bierce
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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, I beg your pardon, and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.
Ambrose Bierce
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Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
Ambrose Bierce