Quote

A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.

Ambrose Bierce

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Sign
Originally
King
Measures
Kings
Symbol
Vetoed
Authority
Sovereign
Ministerial
Office
Staff
Mace
Breaking
Admonished
Symbols
Proponents
Bones
Jester

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
repose, v.i. To cease from troubling.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
FOLLY, n. That gift and faculty divine whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Immoral is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.
Ambrose Bierce