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Platitude: All that is mortal of a departed truth.

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
Truth
Platitude
Platitudes
Departed
Mortal
Mortals

More quotes by 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.
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JOSS-STICKS- Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.
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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.
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There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself whereas he is a fool then only.
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DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.
Ambrose Bierce
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EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other-which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
Ambrose Bierce
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MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.
Ambrose Bierce
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MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
Ambrose Bierce
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LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.
Ambrose Bierce
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A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.
Ambrose Bierce
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An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
Ambrose Bierce
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SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
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Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.
Ambrose Bierce
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Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
Ambrose Bierce
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When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
Ambrose Bierce
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WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.
Ambrose Bierce