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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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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
Great
Made
Linen
Kind
Hemp
Entails
Cloth
Kindness
Waste
Making
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
picture, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.
Ambrose Bierce
What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
Ambrose Bierce
ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! . . .
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SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.
Ambrose Bierce
PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. . . . not be confused with that of foreordination. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.
Ambrose Bierce
In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.
Ambrose Bierce
WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions as, the wrath of God, the day of wrath, etc. . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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
MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.
Ambrose Bierce
NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Ambrose Bierce
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
Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce
HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
Ambrose Bierce
A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
Ambrose Bierce
ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
Ambrose Bierce
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
Doubt is the father of invention.
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OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
Ambrose Bierce