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OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .

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
Objects
Timid
Writer
Chiefly
Longer
Loathing
Word
Obsolete
Words
Marked
Used
Dread
Ever
Object
Lexicographer
Fool
Thereafter

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
Ambrose Bierce
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LOGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge.
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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BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
Ambrose Bierce
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SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.
Ambrose Bierce
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Men who expect universal peace through invention of destructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who, noting the improvement of agricultural implements, should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil.
Ambrose Bierce
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Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
Ambrose Bierce
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When you doubt, abstain.
Ambrose Bierce
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CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
Ambrose Bierce
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Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
Ambrose Bierce
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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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PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument as, He presided at the piccolo.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.
Ambrose Bierce
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Riven and torn with cannon-shot, the trunks of the trees protruded bunches of splinters like hands, the fingers above the wound interlacing with those below.
Ambrose Bierce
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A lottery is a tax on stupidity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Magic: (n) The art of converting superstition into coin.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAGNITUDE, n. Size [that is] purely relative. If everything in the universe were increased 1,000 diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been.
Ambrose Bierce