Quote

COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

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
Picks
Plunder
Money
Transactions
Kind
Compensation
Pocket
Belonging
Commerce
Pockets
Plunders
Goods
Transaction

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.
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.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Genius - to know without having learned to draw just conclusions from unknown premises to discern the soul of things.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
Ambrose Bierce