Quote

MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.

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
Originals
Original
Mace
Heavy
Signifying
Authority
Indicates
Office
Dissent
Purpose
Staff
Use
Club
Form
Clubs

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the U.S. Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LIAR, n. One who tells an unpleasant truth.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a crowned head, although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- I think that I think, therefore I think that I am as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace, attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than reductus in pulvis.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Happiness is lost by criticizing it sorrow by accepting it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
Ambrose Bierce