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A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything. The master of the art accomplishes the formidable task of discrimination.

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
Task
Tasks
Rails
Accomplish
Accomplishes
Master
Rail
Masters
Formidable
Easy
Cynicism
Art
Cheap
Everything
Discrimination

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
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MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
Ambrose Bierce
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God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.
Ambrose Bierce
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There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
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The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
Ambrose Bierce
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The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: O fudge!
Ambrose Bierce
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HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.
Ambrose Bierce
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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of hands across the sea, and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night professions of eternal amity provide the nigh
Ambrose Bierce
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OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession it meant own, and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.
Ambrose Bierce
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RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
Ambrose Bierce
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Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
Ambrose Bierce