Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
Ambrose Bierce
Related
BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.Is public wor...
AMBROSE BIERCE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT The devil is only a convenient myth invented by the real malefactors of our world
ROBERT ANTON WILSON HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
AMBROSE BIERCE Impiety, n. Your irreverence toward my deity
AMBROSE BIERCE Henry shook his head, 'I was drunk,' he said, trying to sound both ashamed and firm in this belief. ...
ANNA GODBERSEN Much like rock 'n' roll, school shootings were invented by the black man and stolen by the whites,
CHRIS ROCK The fact that a player is very short of time is, to my mind, as little to be considered an excuse as...
ALEXANDER ALEKHINE However, don't let perfectionism become an excuse for never getting started.
MARILU HENNER Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, an...
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.
AMBROSE BIERCE Golf: A plague invented by the Calvinistic Scots as a punishment for man's sins.
JAMES BARRETT RESTON KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for ""bliss."" It is supposed to signify, in a gene...
AMBROSE BIERCE An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!
ROBERT BURNS Did someone just call me the wine dude?” he asked in a lazy drawl. “It’s Bacchus, pleas...
RICK RIORDAN Yeah, I got her,” Will confirms.
“Who you got?” I ask.
“You, drunk girl. Come on.�...
KRISTEN PROBY A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.
ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN An excuse is worse than a lie, for an excuse is a lie, guarded.
ALEXANDER POPE PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovide...
AMBROSE BIERCE The 'economy' became a god such as never before, and a happy, successful society was one tha...
MICHAEL LEUNIG excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I ta...
WILLIAM BLAKE As a student, frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented an entirely new...
BILL BRYSON As an ingredient, cereal is quick, convenient, adds great texture and is good for you.
KELLY THOMPSON All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness.
DEMOCRITUS Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.
TOM ROBBINS The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE Writer's Block is just an excuse by people who don't write for not writing.
GIANDO SIGURANI It's an excuse for a fiesta.
MARIANO MARTINEZ I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.
NICOLAS CAGE I don't need an explanation. I don't want to hear it, as a matter of fact. There's no excuse for tha...
FRANK ROBINSON O! green bottle come & take my frustrations away,so says the drunk.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) Generally my songs are just some riffs slung together as an excuse for a guitar solo.
J MASCIS @elerooshe: Don't ever use a hard past as an excuse not to push harder for future
SOPHIA ELEMARA My mom is getting drunk already.
JOHNNY WEIR What is the good of being a genius if you cannot use it as an excuse for being unemployed?
GERALD BARZAN Born again?! No, I'm not. Excuse me for getting it right the first time.
DENNIS MILLER As the OLPC laptop was getting ready to go into mass production in 2007, many executives approached ...
MARY LOU JEPSEN Muscat is like a mind-altering drug. A stroll in its streets is like getting drunk for the first tim...
SARA SHERIDAN Marriage is an honorable estate and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse.
JASPER FFORDE I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.
NICOLAS CAGE Drink, drink! Bacchus is the enemy of Venus.
"From The Diary Of An Orange Tree
HANNS HEINZ EWERS Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.
BENJAMIN HAYDON People can drive by and drop donations into a bucket. We want to make it as convenient as possible.
SANDRA HARRIS In time, the Deity perceived that death was a mistake; a mistake, in that it was insufficient; insuf...
MARK TWAIN These bombings are used by the Israeli government as an excuse to continue its aggression and collec...
AHMED QOREI This is just part of a demand for more rate increases. They are using it as an excuse.
DOUG HELLER They try to use it as an excuse for not paying workers compensation. It's an easy way out.
GERALD ROSENTHAL It will be a regional draw as well as a convenient attraction for all the new downtown residents.
CAROL SCHATZ People with negative frame of mind take obstacle & difficulties as curse & look for an excuse.
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Prepare yourselves
for the roaring voice of the God of Joy!
EURIPIDES Le vin est la gaieté, dit-on ; comment cet océan de vin qui submerge la commune de Bercy n’égay...
PAUL FéVAL PèRE Inexperience can be used as an excuse or an opportunity. It is as an excuse that it is most often tr...
MICHAEL ATHERTON Mistake should be taken as motivation not as an excuse.
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their h...
VOLTAIRE The world used us as an excuse to go mad.
GEORGE HARRISON (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes...
JEAN SASSON History will never accept difficulties as an excuse.
JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY Using that as an excuse is not true.
SAMANTHA HELLER If an apology is followed by an excuse or a reason, it means they are going to commit same mistake a...
AMIT KALANTRI BASILISK, n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched form the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a ba...
AMBROSE BIERCE Don't judge. I'm not getting drunk. I'm coping.
A.S. KING This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
JOHN WYCLIFFE Well, Valek, any new promotions?” the Commander asked
“No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortu...
MARIA V. SNYDER Wrong done should be taken as motivation not as an excuse.
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight
JOHN RUSKIN Shame is an unhappy emotion invented by pietists in order to exploit the human race.
BLAKE EDWARDS The pinecone is a fearsome tool of destruction!
-Bacchus
RICK RIORDAN Getting drunk is an paradox! When people party they feel like royalty at the village pub, but feel l...
TRAVIS J HEDRICK Me, I'd prefer to have a good reputation rather than getting press for being scandalous, getting...
SOPHIA BUSH It will never do to plead sin as an excuse for sin, or to attempt to justify sinful acts by pleading...
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER All of corporate America is going to use Katrina as an excuse for all of their problems.
CUMMINS CATHERWOOD Vigorous activity works up a sweat, which worsens dehydration n and being drunk often relaxes inhibi...
JEFF WIESE FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and s...
AMBROSE BIERCE Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
JOHN DRYDEN PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.
AMBROSE BIERCE An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wise...
CHARLES DARWIN An American Monkey after getting drunk on Brandy would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser ...
CHARLES DARWIN I mostly prepared (for the race) by swimming because it is convenient with all the snow.
ERIC RONNING Mental illness is an illness , not an excuse for irresponsibility .
TALITHA DAY FAIR Mulligan: Invented by an Irishman who wanted to hit one more 20-yard grounder.
JIM BISHOP Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
OSCAR WILDE Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others
OSCAR WILDE Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
GIDEON WURDZ Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
OSCAR WILDE Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
OSCAR WILDE A new Fed chairman is an unknown and as such offers nervous investors an excuse to sell.
KEN TOWER Only fools wait, and only tools bait.
CRE There are approximately two trillion cells in the human body. You are never alone, there are always ...
DWIGHT W. HAYES Ironically people will thank a deity for 'letting' them win a race, but blame a 'witch' if they stum...
CHRISTINA ENGELA Ironically people will thank a deity for "letting" them win a race, but blame a "witch" if they stum...
CHRISTINA ENGELA Morality, like language, is an invented structure for conserving and communicating order. And morali...
JANE RULE I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, whic...
COCO CHANEL My guess is the lateness of the session will be used as an excuse to just not stand up for it.
LARRY PELLEGRINI A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect: as rational, which proceeds accurately by de...
ISAAC NEWTON FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat...
AMBROSE BIERCE
More Ambrose Bierce
Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
AMBROSE BIERCE Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the e...
AMBROSE BIERCE Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
AMBROSE BIERCE Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for,...
AMBROSE BIERCE Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
AMBROSE BIERCE Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Doubt is the father of invention.
AMBROSE BIERCE Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
AMBROSE BIERCE Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
AMBROSE BIERCE Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
AMBROSE BIERCE Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
AMBROSE BIERCE Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Liberty:one of imaginations most precious possessions.
AMBROSE BIERCE Quoting: the act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
AMBROSE BIERCE Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimist: a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
AMBROSE BIERCE Litigant: a person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bone.
AMBROSE BIERCE Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
AMBROSE BIERCE OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth b...
AMBROSE BIERCE For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His e...
AMBROSE BIERCE Education, n.: That which discloses the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understand...
AMBROSE BIERCE Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
AMBROSE BIERCE Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
AMBROSE BIERCE You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
AMBROSE BIERCE Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no g...
AMBROSE BIERCE Fidelity. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
AMBROSE BIERCE Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
AMBROSE BIERCE The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
AMBROSE BIERCE Marriage. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, m...
AMBROSE BIERCE Bride. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
AMBROSE BIERCE What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republi...
AMBROSE BIERCE Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking th...
AMBROSE BIERCE Learning. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
AMBROSE BIERCE Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
AMBROSE BIERCE Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.
AMBROSE BIERCE Life. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance: a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate ...
AMBROSE BIERCE An acquaintance is someone we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
AMBROSE BIERCE A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
AMBROSE BIERCE Beauty. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
AMBROSE BIERCE Let me tell you what a writer is. A writer takes comprehensive views, holds large convictions, makes...
AMBROSE BIERCE Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
AMBROSE BIERCE Don't steal; thou it never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
AMBROSE BIERCE Philanthropist. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his co...
AMBROSE BIERCE Age. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no...
AMBROSE BIERCE Success is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.
AMBROSE BIERCE Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understan...
AMBROSE BIERCE Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
AMBROSE BIERCE Edible. Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pi...
AMBROSE BIERCE Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
AMBROSE BIERCE Erudition. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
AMBROSE BIERCE Saint. A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad gover...
AMBROSE BIERCE Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
AMBROSE BIERCE Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
AMBROSE BIERCE Deliberation. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
AMBROSE BIERCE Take not God's name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.
AMBROSE BIERCE A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
AMBROSE BIERCE Bigot, one who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
AMBROSE BIERCE Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly un...
AMBROSE BIERCE Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration t...
AMBROSE BIERCE Admiration; is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
AMBROSE BIERCE To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
AMBROSE BIERCE A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
AMBROSE BIERCE All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
AMBROSE BIERCE A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves a glorious success.
AMBROSE BIERCE Peace, in international affairs, is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
AMBROSE BIERCE Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE An optimist is a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
AMBROSE BIERCE They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
AMBROSE BIERCE As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolen...
AMBROSE BIERCE Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
AMBROSE BIERCE Politeness -- The most acceptable hypocrisy.
AMBROSE BIERCE A man is known by the company he organizes.
AMBROSE BIERCE Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapaciti...
AMBROSE BIERCE Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward ap...
AMBROSE BIERCE Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
AMBROSE BIERCE An egotist is a person interested in himself than in me!
AMBROSE BIERCE Duty. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
AMBROSE BIERCE Opiate. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
AMBROSE BIERCE Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comforta...
AMBROSE BIERCE Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
AMBROSE BIERCE Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
AMBROSE BIERCE Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Mis...
AMBROSE BIERCE Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is please...
AMBROSE BIERCE Wit. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
AMBROSE BIERCE A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man, who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a cont...
AMBROSE BIERCE Dog. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the worl...
AMBROSE BIERCE Physician -- One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
AMBROSE BIERCE Divorce. A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE Consul. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is give...
AMBROSE BIERCE Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscien...
AMBROSE BIERCE A cynic is a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, and not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE Confidante. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
AMBROSE BIERCE The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
AMBROSE BIERCE Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is ...
AMBROSE BIERCE A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.
AMBROSE BIERCE An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
AMBROSE BIERCE To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
AMBROSE BIERCE An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly k...
AMBROSE BIERCE Historian. A broad -- gauge gossip.
AMBROSE BIERCE Habit is a shackle for the free.
AMBROSE BIERCE Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarti...
AMBROSE BIERCE Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
AMBROSE BIERCE Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
AMBROSE BIERCE Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, ad...
AMBROSE BIERCE Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
AMBROSE BIERCE Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly tha...
AMBROSE BIERCE The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
AMBROSE BIERCE When in Rome, do as Rome does.
AMBROSE BIERCE To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Rom...
AMBROSE BIERCE Bore -- a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
AMBROSE BIERCE Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by frie...
AMBROSE BIERCE Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
AMBROSE BIERCE Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things withou...
AMBROSE BIERCE Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
AMBROSE BIERCE Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his o...
AMBROSE BIERCE Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
AMBROSE BIERCE Woman absent is woman dead.
AMBROSE BIERCE The covers of this book are too far apart.
AMBROSE BIERCE Abscond. To move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their deso...
AMBROSE BIERCE A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE Conservative. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wi...
AMBROSE BIERCE The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserte...
AMBROSE BIERCE ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply in...
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance is a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor and obscure, and intima...
AMBROSE BIERCE ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn."Eat ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction o...
AMBROSE BIERCE Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
AMBROSE BIERCE Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoulde...
AMBROSE BIERCE DIPLOMACY, n. Lying in state, or the patriotic art of lying for one's country.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds. Misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
AMBROSE BIERCE Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
AMBROSE BIERCE There are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
AMBROSE BIERCE FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
AMBROSE BIERCE ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Mus...
AMBROSE BIERCE HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was a com...
AMBROSE BIERCE ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A m...
AMBROSE BIERCE YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the So...
AMBROSE BIERCE Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo
AMBROSE BIERCE Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscie...
AMBROSE BIERCE One who is in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was onc...
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
AMBROSE BIERCE Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled wh...
AMBROSE BIERCE When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of...
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
AMBROSE BIERCE ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapaci...
AMBROSE BIERCE LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property s...
AMBROSE BIERCE The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
AMBROSE BIERCE Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.
AMBROSE BIERCE Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
AMBROSE BIERCE Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affai...
AMBROSE BIERCE Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
AMBROSE BIERCE Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
AMBROSE BIERCE Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
AMBROSE BIERCE Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
AMBROSE BIERCE Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth ke...
AMBROSE BIERCE Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the wor...
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
AMBROSE BIERCE Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
AMBROSE BIERCE Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the...
AMBROSE BIERCE Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction ...
AMBROSE BIERCE The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
AMBROSE BIERCE TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeab...
AMBROSE BIERCE Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and wa...
AMBROSE BIERCE