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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

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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
Standards
Differences
Face
Resemblances
Physiognomy
Faces
Determining
Art
Resemblance
Another
Standard
Character
Excellence

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.
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A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.
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Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
Ambrose Bierce
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RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
Ambrose Bierce
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A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
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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A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
Ambrose Bierce
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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. The Mad Philosopher, 1697
Ambrose Bierce
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A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
Ambrose Bierce
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MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
Ambrose Bierce
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A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
Ambrose Bierce
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Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
Ambrose Bierce
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ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.
Ambrose Bierce
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RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
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BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
Ambrose Bierce
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Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
Ambrose Bierce