Ambrose Bierce Quotes (876 Quotes)


    OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

    GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These quills when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an 'author,' there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.

    Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.

    Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.

    RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.


    OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.



    JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances ... the king's own conduct and decrees being sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.

    Cannibal, n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.

    SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.

    REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

    Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.

    CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.

    SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar 'tumble-bug.' It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.

    BOTANY, n. The science of vegetables those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill- smelling.

    CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by 'him' to C.

    Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

    We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.

    MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

    NIRVANA, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.

    R. I. P. A careless abbreviation of 'requiescat in pace', attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than 'reductus in pulvis'.

    TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.


    ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude ...

    REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

    HABEAS CORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime.

    KILL, v.t. To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.

    SOPHISTRY, n. The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling.

    REFORM, v. A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.


    CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.


    LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.

    Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

    AFFIANCED, pp. Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.

    LL. D. Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor, one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly LL.d., and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished.

    LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.

    YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

    OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe .... The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.


    LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man's disillusion given.

    INCUMBENT, n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.

    Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

    RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

    AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

    MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

    PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

    BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.

    GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.


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