SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.
More Quotes from Ambrose Bierce:
LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.Ambrose Bierce
RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. The railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
Ambrose Bierce
LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss yet when lost it is not missed.
Ambrose Bierce
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
Ambrose Bierce
SLANG, n. The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.
Ambrose Bierce
NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes some of which have a large sale.
Ambrose Bierce
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Based on Topics: Proverbs QuotesBased on Keywords: colloquial, figurative, saws, trite
Resolved, that the women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776.
Susan B. Anthony
It doesn't stand up to huge intellectual scrutiny.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Writing a children's book means you cannot spin out long narratives or have complex character development.
Norman Macleod