Quote

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

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
Called
Snake
Living
Adding
Science
Snakes
Expenses
Funeral
Humour
Species
Habit
Adders

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A penny saved is a penny to squander.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Phoenix, n. The classical prototype of the modern 'small hot bird.'
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Potable, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Spring beckons! All things to the call respond the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Adolescence: A stage between infancy and adultery.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Fear has no brains it is an idiot.
Ambrose Bierce