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FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London

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
Borne
Ships
Rags
Lots
Sees
Colored
London
Flag
Serve
Flags
Hoisted
Purpose
Signs
Forts
Certain
Troops
Vacant
Appears

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.
Ambrose Bierce
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The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
Ambrose Bierce
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ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
Ambrose Bierce
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RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
Ambrose Bierce
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CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce
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SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.
Ambrose Bierce
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I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
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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Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
Ambrose Bierce
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Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
Ambrose Bierce
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In this world one must have a name it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.
Ambrose Bierce
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Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.
Ambrose Bierce