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The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.

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
Reward
Distinction
Degree
Rewards
Degrees
Democracy
High
Democracies
Conformity

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
Ambrose Bierce
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Quill: An instrument of torture yielded by a goose and commonly weilded by as ass.
Ambrose Bierce
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CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.
Ambrose Bierce
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MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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In the algebra of psychology, X stands for a woman's heart.
Ambrose Bierce
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Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
Ambrose Bierce
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RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
Ambrose Bierce
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A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
Ambrose Bierce
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When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection thine own is open at thy feet.
Ambrose Bierce
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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him.
Ambrose Bierce
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MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.
Ambrose Bierce