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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

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

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Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
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Scriptures - The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
Ambrose Bierce
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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
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It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
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Fear has no brains it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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He laughs best who laughs least.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
Ambrose Bierce
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Contempt the feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.
Ambrose Bierce
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Least said is soon disavowed.
Ambrose Bierce
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EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
Ambrose Bierce
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Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
Ambrose Bierce
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DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number - just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice.
Ambrose Bierce
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ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. . . . the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.
Ambrose Bierce
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MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.
Ambrose Bierce
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RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.
Ambrose Bierce
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
Ambrose Bierce