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REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

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
Probabilities
Probability
Scales
Weight
Desire
Reason

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
Ambrose Bierce
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LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss yet when lost it is not missed.
Ambrose Bierce
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Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
Ambrose Bierce
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The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.
Ambrose Bierce
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There are two instruments worse than a clarinet - two clarinets.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command
Ambrose Bierce
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X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.
Ambrose Bierce
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A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.
Ambrose Bierce
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Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Ambrose Bierce
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Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
Ambrose Bierce
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Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
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I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cribbage, n. A substitute for conversation among those to whom nature has denied ideas.
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