Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Quotes (242 Quotes)

FOREORDINATION, n. This looks like an easy word to define, but when I consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives in explaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations when I remember the nations have been divided and bloody battles caused by the difference between foreordination and predestination, and that millions of treasure have been expended in the effort to prove and disprove its compatibility with freedom of the will and the efficacy of prayer, praise, and a religious life, --recalling these awful facts in the history of the word, I stand appalled before the mighty problem of its signification, abase my spiritual eyes, fearing to contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently uncover and humbly refer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace Bishop Potter.

IMPROBABILITY, n.His tale he told with a solemn face And a tender, melancholy grace. Improbable 'twas, no doubt, When you came to think it out, But the fascinated crowd Their deep surprise avowed And all with a single voice averred'Twas the most amazing thing they'd heard -- All save one who spake never a word, But sat as mum As if deaf and dumb, Serene, indifferent and unstirred. Then all the others turned to him And scrutinized him limb from limb -- Scanned him alive But he seemed to thrive And tranquiler grow each minute, As if there were nothing in it.What what cried one, are you not amazed At what our friend has told He raised Soberly then his eyes and gazed In a natural way And proceeded to say, As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelfO no --not at all I'm a liar myself.

BOTTLE-NOSED, adj. Having a nose created in the image of its maker.

ESOTERIC, adj. Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds, --exoteric, those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and esoteric, those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our time.

HAG, n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like sometimes called, also, a hen, or cat. Old witches, sorceresses, etc., were called hags from the belief that their heads were surrounded by a kind of baleful lumination or nimbus --hag being the popular name of that peculiar electrical light sometimes observed in the hair. At one time hag was not a word of reproach Drayton speaks of a beautiful hag, all smiles, much as Shakespeare said, sweet wench. It would not now be proper to call your sweetheart a hag --that compliment is reserved for the use of her grandchildren.

Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.

J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel --than which nothing could be more absurd. Its original form, which has been but slightly modified, was that of the tail of a subdued dog, and it was not a letter but a character, standing for a Latin verb, jacere, to throw, because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape. This is the origin of the letter, as expounded by the renowned Dr. Jocolpus Bumer, of the University of Belgrade, who established his conclusions on the subject in a work of three quarto volumes and committed suicide on being reminded that the j in the Roman alphabet had originally no curl.

ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians --may their souls be happy in Heaven

SACRAMENT, n. A solemn religious ceremony to which several degrees of authority and significance are attached. Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity. Some of the smaller sects have no sacraments at all --for which mean economy they will indubitable be damned.

RICHES, n.A gift from Heaven signifying, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. --John D. RockefellerThe reward of toil and virtue. --J.P. MorganThe sayings of many in the hands of one. --Eugene DebsTo these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value.

SATYR, n. One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded recognition in the Hebrew. (Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at first a member of the dissolute community acknowledging a loose allegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many transformations and improvements. Not infrequently he is confounded with the faun, a later and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and more like a goat.

ABSENTEE, n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

HEAD-MONEY, n. A capitation tax, or poll-tax. In ancient times there lived a king Whose tax-collectors could not wring From all his subjects gold enough To make the royal way less rough. For pleasure's highway, like the dames Whose premises adjoin it, claims Perpetual repairing. So The tax-collectors in a row Appeared before the throne to pray Their master to devise some way To swell the revenue. So great, Said they, are the demands of state A tithe of all that we collect Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect How, if one-tenth we must resign, Can we exist on t'other nine The monarch asked them in reply; Has it occurred to you to try The advantage of economy; It has, the spokesman said we sold All of our gray garrotes of gold With plated-ware we now compress The necks of those whom we assess. Plain iron forceps we employ To mitigate the miser's joy Who hoards, with greed that never tires, That which your Majesty requires. Deep lines of thought were seen to plow Their way across the royal brow. Your state is desperate, no question Pray favor me with a suggestion. O King of Men, the spokesman said, If you'll impose upon each head A tax, the augmented revenue We'll cheerfully divide with you. As flashes of the sun illume The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom, The king smiled grimly. I decree That it be so --and, not to be In generosity outdone, Declare you, each and every one, Exempted from the operation Of this new law of capitation. But lest the people censure me Because they're bound and you are free,'Twere well some clever scheme were laid By you this poll-tax to evade. I'll leave you now while you confer With my most trusted minister. The monarch from the throne-room walked And straightway in among them stalked A silent man, with brow concealed, Bare-armed --his gleaming axe revealed --G. J.

BRAHMA, n. He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva --a rather neater division of labor than is found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese, for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, are holy and learned men who are never naughty.O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity, First Person of the Hindoo Trinity, You sit there so calm and securely, With feet folded up so demurely -- You're the First Person Singular, surely. --Polydore Smith

LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler SilcoxThe electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores O tempora O moresIt should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.

CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity, but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been believed to be identical with the crux ansata of the ancient phallic worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that, to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the effect followingBe good, be good the sisterhood Cry out in holy chorus, And, to dissuade from sin, parade Their various charms before us.But why, O why, has ne'er an eye Seen her of winsome manner And youthful grace and pretty face Flaunting the White Cross bannerNow where's the need of speech and screed To better our behaving A simpler plan for saving man(But, first, is he worth saving)Is, dears, when he declines to flee From bad thoughts that beset him, Ignores the Law as 't were a straw, And wants to sin --don't let him.

MAIDEN, n. A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field by the canary --which, also, is more portable.A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang -- This quaint, sweet song sang sheIt's O for a youth with a football bang And a muscle fair to see The Captain he Of a team to be On the gridiron he shall shine, A monarch by right divine, And never to roast on it --me --Opoline Jones

Capital Punishment, a penalty regarding the justice and expediency of which many worthy persons - including all the assassins - entertain grave misgivings

Advice is the smallest current coin.

MAGDALENE, n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers.

HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the esat of emotions and sentiments --a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling --tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility --these things have been patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. (See, also, my monograph, The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion --4to, 687 pp.) In a scientific work entitled, I believe, Delectatio Demonorum (John Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a striking illustration and for further light consult Professor Dam's famous treatise on Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration.

BLACKGUARD, n. A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box of berries in a market --the fine ones on top --have been opened on the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.

PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

TREE, n. A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all. When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit (white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general welfare. That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no discovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries; While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof I had hearde moch talk but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as followeth; Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye King his Majesty. And I was furder tolde yt ye worde Ghogo sygnifyeth in yr tong ye same as rapscal in our owne. --Trauvells in ye Easte.

INCUBUS, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best nights. For a complete account of incubi and succubi, including incubae and succubae, see the Liber Demonorum of Protassus (Paris, 1328), which contains much curious information that would be out of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public schools. Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself --tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women, doubtless --sometimes plays at incubus, greatly to the inconvenience and alarm of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows, generally speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to learn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from their husbands. The holy man said they must feel his brown for horns but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy of the test.

DAMN, v. A word formerly much used by the Paphlagonians, the meaning of which is lost. By the learned Dr. Dolabelly Gak it is believed to have been a term of satisfaction, implying the highest possible degree of mental tranquillity. Professor Groke, on the contrary, thinks it expressed an emotion of tumultuous delight, because it so frequently occurs in combination with the word jod or god, meaning joy. It would be with great diffidence that I should advance an opinion conflicting with that of either of these formidable authorities.

BARRACK, n. A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.

SATAN, n. One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. There is one favor that I should like to ask, said he. Name it. Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws. What, wretch you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul --you ask for the right to make his lawsPardon what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself. It was so ordered.

DANGER, n.A savage beast which, when it sleeps, Man girds at and despises, But takes himself away by leaps And bounds when it arises. --Ambat Delaso

OBSESSED, p. p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was once more common than it is now. Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were frequently seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally driven away by the village notary, a holy man but they took the peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a woman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a hundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leap higher than a church spire he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in Cromwell's army exorcised a soldier's obsessing devil by throwing the soldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface. The soldier, unfortunately, did not.

EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.Megaceph, chosen to serve the State In the halls of legislative debate, One day with all his credentials came To the capitol's door and announced his name. The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist Of the face, at the eminent egotist, And said Go away, for we settle here All manner of questions, knotty and queer, And we cannot have, when the speaker demands To be told how every member stands, A man who to all things under the sky Assents by eternally voting 'I'.

BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in reading character in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false character can really be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word dupe. The imposture consists in not reading it aloud.

New York is too strenuous for me it gets on my nerves

FAMOUS, adj. Conspicuously miserable.Done to a turn on the iron, behold Him who to be famous aspired. Content Well, his grill has a plating of gold, And his twistings are greatly admired. --Hassan Brubuddy

Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen

HEARSE, n. Death's baby-carriage.

WINE, n. Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.

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.

ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten.When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. --Oliver Cromwell

FRANKALMOIGNE, n. The tenure by which a religious corporation holds lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. In mediaeval times many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates in this simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England sent an officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternity of monks held by frankalmoigne, What said the Prior, would you master stay our benefactor's soul in Purgatory Ay, said the officer, coldly, an ye will not pray him thence for naught he must e'en roast. But look you, my son, persisted the good man, this act hath rank as robbery of God Nay, nay, good father, my master the king doth but deliver him from the manifold temptations of too great wealth.

RASH, adj. Insensible to the value of our advice. Now lay your bet with mine, nor let These gamblers take your cash. Nay, this child makes no bet. Great snakes How can you be so rash --Bootle P. Gish.

In Italian, a belladonna is a beautiful lady in English, it's a deadly poison.

BRUTE, n. See HUSBAND.

RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. What is your religion my son inquired the Archbishop of Rheims. Pardon, monseigneur, replied Rochebriant I am ashamed of it. Then why do you not become an atheist; Impossible I should be ashamed of atheism. In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants.

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog

OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

INDECISION, n. The chief element of success for whereas, saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards --a most clear and satisfactory exposition on the matter. Your prompt decision to attack, said Genera Grant on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, was admirable you had but five minutes to make up your mind in. Yes, sir, answered the victorious subordinate, it is a great thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment --I toss us a copper. Do you mean to say that's what you did this time; Yes, General but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me I disobeyed the coin.

DATARY, n. A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman Catholic Church, whose important function is to brand the Pope's bulls with the words Datum Romae. He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of God.

BONDSMAN, n. A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third. Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a dissolute nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would be able to give. I need no bondsmen, he replied, for I can give you my word of honor. And pray what may be the value of that inquired the amused Regent. Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold.