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Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is, instead of as it should be.
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
Instead
Vision
World
Blackguard
Compels
Defect
Defects
Cynicism
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
Ambrose Bierce
ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! . . .
Ambrose Bierce
PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence an attribute of the critic.
Ambrose Bierce
LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
Ambrose Bierce
RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries . .
Ambrose Bierce
J, n. A consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel . . . from a Latin verb, jacere, to throw, because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape.
Ambrose Bierce
CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.
Ambrose Bierce
USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.
Ambrose Bierce
HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
Ambrose Bierce
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
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue.
Ambrose Bierce
Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
Ambrose Bierce
The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
Ambrose Bierce
MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
Ambrose Bierce
MONSIGNOR- A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.
Ambrose Bierce
He laughs best who laughs least.
Ambrose Bierce
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Ambrose Bierce
Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
Ambrose Bierce
LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.
Ambrose Bierce
INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
Ambrose Bierce