Quote

JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances . . . the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.

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
Decrees
Kings
Amusement
Jester
Court
Attached
Ludicrous
Mankind
Officers
Action
Household
Amuse
Conduct
Decree
Ridiculous
Utterance
King
Officer
Utterances
Actions
Sufficiently

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Convictions are variable to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.
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
Economy, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need
Ambrose Bierce
Image
HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Congratulations is the civility of envy.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.
Ambrose Bierce