Quote

For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.

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
Men
Second
Like
Enemy
Names
Vocabulary
Language
Stick
Find
Enemies
Every
Skin
Something
Sticks
Would
Skins

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
aim, n. The task we set our wishes to.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).
Ambrose Bierce
Image
WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.
Ambrose Bierce