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Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.

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
Falsehood
Afford
Truth
Without
Thing
Good

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce
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NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
Ambrose Bierce
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HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.
Ambrose Bierce
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The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere survivals - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
Ambrose Bierce
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The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
Ambrose Bierce
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Uncommon extension of the fear of death.
Ambrose Bierce
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KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a crowned head, although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn.
Ambrose Bierce
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Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
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An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
Ambrose Bierce
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Learning -the kind of ignorance affected by (and affecting) civilized races, as distinguished from ignorance, the sort of learning incurred by savages. See nonsense.
Ambrose Bierce
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PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.
Ambrose Bierce
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SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.
Ambrose Bierce
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DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.
Ambrose Bierce