BIGAMY, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
More Quotes from Ambrose Gwinett Bierce:
Truth -- An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
BRUTE, n. See HUSBAND.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
JESTER, n. An officer formerly attached to a king's household, whose business it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume. The king himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person. In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears. The widow-queen of Portugal Had an audacious jester Who entered the confessional Disguised, and there confessed her. Father, she said, thine ear bend down -- My sins are more than scarlet I love my fool --blaspheming clown, And common, base-born varlet. Daughter, the mimic priest replied, That sin, indeed, is awful The church's pardon is denied To love that is unlawful. But since thy stubborn heart will be For him forever pleading, Thou'dst better make him, by decree, A man of birth and breeding. She made the fool a duke, in hope With Heaven's taboo to palter Then told a priest, who told the Pope, Who damned her from the altar --Barel Dort.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
INFERIAE, n. Latin Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for propitation of the Dii Manes, or souls of the dead heroes for the pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor might say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising materials. It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an audience of that illustrious warrior's shade, who prophetically recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity, giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back further than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel's judgment of the matter might be different and to that I bow --wow.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
KEEP, v.t.He willed away his whole estate, And then in death he fell asleep, Murmuring Well, at any rate, My name unblemished I shall keep. But when upon the tomb 'twas wrought Whose was it --for the dead keep naught. --Durang Gophel Arn
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
NEGRO, n. The piece de resistance in the American political problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to build their equation thus Let n the white man. This, however, appears to give an unsatisfactory solution.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
Based on Topics: Error & Mistake Quotes, Future Quotes, Punishment Quotes, Sense & Perception Quotes, Wisdom & Knowledge QuotesBased on Keywords: adjudge, bigamy
Into every soul, however purged and fenced, evil appears to have as much freedom of entrance as God Himself.
George A. Smith
In fact, it was the women in our house who were in the saddle. If men are the gods, women are not only the presidents but all the ministers of the government.
Pedro Almodovar
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
Michel de Montaigne