Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Laziness
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Time
Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Temptation, Pleasure, Self-Control
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Medicine
Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
—Ambrose Bierce
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Saints, Perspective
Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Work, Disorder
Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a “joke.”
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Humor, Jokes
Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Photography
Lawyer, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Lawyers
Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Happiness
Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Community, Politics
Quotation, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Quotations
Laughter—An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Laughter
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Youth, Experience
What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Politics, Politicians
The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Knowledge
IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent on, their consequences—then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Disorder
Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Marriage
Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
—Ambrose Bierce
OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof—an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Optimism, Disorder
Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Perspective
Barometer: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Weather
Appeal: In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Law, Justice, Trials
Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Advice
Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Impartiality
Opportunity is a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Disappointment
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Logic, Thinking
SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Selfishness
Historian. A broad—gauge gossip.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: History, Historians
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Heywood Broun American Journalist
- Arthur Brisbane American Editor
- Shana Alexander American Journalist
- Nathaniel Parker Willis American Poet, Playwright
- Brenda Ueland American Journalist Memoirist
- William Allen White American Editor
- Marilyn Ferguson American Author
- George Horace Lorimer American Editor
- E. L. Doctorow American Writer
- George Jean Nathan American Drama Critic
Leave a Reply