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Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
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
Slander
Speak
Find
Men
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar tumble-bug. It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.
Ambrose Bierce
EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.
Ambrose Bierce
GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted.
Ambrose Bierce
YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.
Ambrose Bierce
Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions where it can get a foothold it makes a stand where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
Ambrose Bierce
PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
Ambrose Bierce
RACK, n. An argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading devotees of a false faith to embrace the living truth. As a call to the unconverted the rack never had any particular efficacy, and is now held in light popular esteem.
Ambrose Bierce
Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure
Ambrose Bierce
PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
Ambrose Bierce
SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose having a divine character inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions as... the Cow in India the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.
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! . . .
Ambrose Bierce
Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
Ambrose Bierce
WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.
Ambrose Bierce
PALM, n. A species of tree . . . of which the familiar itching palm (Palma hominis) is most widely distributed . . . . This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver.
Ambrose Bierce
me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.
Ambrose Bierce
LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system - an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.
Ambrose Bierce
EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.
Ambrose Bierce
CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, author of 'Cogito ergo sum' to demonstrate the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved 'Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum' 'I think that I think, therefore I think that I am' as close an approach.
Ambrose Bierce
A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
Ambrose Bierce
IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.
Ambrose Bierce