Quote

LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.

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
Words
Swim
Puncture
War
Unconscious
Bladder
Self
Wounds
Vanquished
Kind
Esteem
Victor
Rewards
Contest
Defeat
Contests
Weapons
Reward
Success
Denied

More quotes by 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
WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked Unknown, and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in honoring the memory of him of whom no memory remains to honor but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, Every man his own horse.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Inexpedient: Not calculated to advance one's interests.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce