GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.
More Quotes from Ambrose Gwinett Bierce:
A revolution, in politics, is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. The substitution of the rule of an administration for that of a ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals. By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said, Attests to the gods its respect for the dead. We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint, Distil him for physic and grind him for paint, Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame, And with levity flock to the scene of the shame. O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme For respecting the dead what's the limit of time --Scopas Brune.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
TECHNICALITY, n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder. His exact words were Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder. The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, the historian, the only Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by declaring that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks from falling over their own feet, and some from lack of restoratives. The mice, he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of the chase with composure. But if Roman history is nine-tenths lying, we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of that rhetorical figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible cruelty to a lovely women for a hard heart has a false tongue.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
Truth -- An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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