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SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

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
May
Approaches
Sometimes
Editor
Belly
Editors
Greatness
Approach
Sycophants
Turn
Commanded
Turns
Kicked

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries . .
Ambrose Bierce
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Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.
Ambrose Bierce
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Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
Ambrose Bierce
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PICKANINNY, n. The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
Ambrose Bierce
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Achievement the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
Ambrose Bierce
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PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
Ambrose Bierce
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POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
Ambrose Bierce
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Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose having a divine character inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions as... the Cow in India the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.
Ambrose Bierce
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OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.
Ambrose Bierce
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SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
Ambrose Bierce
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LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject as an editor by not writing about it.
Ambrose Bierce
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MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.
Ambrose Bierce
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REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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predilection, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.
Ambrose Bierce
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NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
Ambrose Bierce