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DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

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
Sin
Washed
Away
Notable
Firsts
Baptism
First
Sinners
World
Experiment
Sinner
Sins
Experiments
Deluge

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
Ambrose Bierce
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IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
Ambrose Bierce
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The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.
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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The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men - were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended.
Ambrose Bierce
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Philanthropist, n.: A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
Ambrose Bierce
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MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.
Ambrose Bierce
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Spring beckons! All things to the call respond the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
Ambrose Bierce
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Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
Ambrose Bierce
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Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
Ambrose Bierce
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LINEN, n. A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.
Ambrose Bierce
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A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
Ambrose Bierce
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A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
Ambrose Bierce
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TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).
Ambrose Bierce
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OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment . . . . judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
Ambrose Bierce
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God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Ambrose Bierce
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VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
Ambrose Bierce