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Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.

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
Dump
Garbage
Literary
Speech
Dumps
Way
Robs
Slang
Carts

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
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recollect, v. To recall with additions something not previously known.
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Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
Ambrose Bierce
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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce
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INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both - as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.
Ambrose Bierce
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plagiarism, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
Ambrose Bierce
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The circus a place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.
Ambrose Bierce
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There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
Ambrose Bierce