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Fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.


Ambrose Bierce

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Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
AMBROSE BIERCE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dea...
AMBROSE BIERCE No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
AMBROSE BIERCE CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets.
AMBROSE BIERCE Hail to you gods, on that day of the great reckoning. Behold me, I have come to you, without sin, wi...
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD Stop a minute, Ambrose!" interrupted Master Nathaniel. "I've got a sudden silly whim that we should ...
HOPE MIRRLEES HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's ...
AMBROSE BIERCE I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at le...
KURT VONNEGUT JR. Logic: an instrument used for bolstering a prejudice.
ELBERT HUBBARD Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
AMBROSE BIERCE Logic is an instrument used for bolstering a prejudice.
ELBERT HUBBARD MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high pu...
AMBROSE BIERCE FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat...
AMBROSE BIERCE [The employees who toured with the Dead will feel the pinch, as well.] There's crew and there's secu...
THE GRATEFUL DEAD Every silver linings got a touch of grey
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will sur...
THE GRATEFUL DEAD we fork ourselves to death with the tines with which we spear the muscles of innocent animals.
O ANNA NIEMUS Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM We wouldn't have to speak so critically if businesses would stop feeding dead animals to live on...
DONELLA MEADOWS From the Kindle Book Reflections in the Mirror of Life:
“In a slum somewhere in India
As...
THE PROPHET OF LIFE Before you dive in head first, make sure the water is not shallow.
KATHERINE DIVOLIS When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.
YOGI BERRA When you come to the fork in the road, take it
YOGI BERRA Phonograph, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
AMBROSE BIERCE RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to fi...
AMBROSE BIERCE The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE What I hate is ignorance, smallness of imagination, the eye that sees no farther than its own lashes...
EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction ...
FRANCES MOORE LAPPE In the Fall of 1774 & Winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who for...
PAUL REVERE (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes...
JEAN SASSON The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.
OSCAR WILDE Human rights is new for the military. They usually see human rights as a scapegoat, an instrument us...
INDRIA SAMEGO As long as that song plays, I get to put my hands on you, and I can’t guarantee I’m going to be ...
MEREDITH WILD Just give me one night, Vanessa. One night, and I won’t let you regret it.
MEREDITH WILD I am forever engaged in a silent battle in my head over whether or not to lift the fork to my mouth,...
JENA MORROW As we neared the water, I pointed out an antique taxidermy shop. "My mom and I used to always go in ...
AMY PLUM Well, I'm more lopsided than a one legged badger," mewed Graypaw, breaking off from his carful stalk...
ERIN HUNTER No milk. It is black coffee, pure but strong, that fortifies against the powers of darkness with whi...
ROBERT AICKMAN I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of cours...
JON KRAKAUER Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experie...
WALTER BENJAMIN The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork - Oscar Wilde
OSCAR WILDE (The flute is) an instrument that doesn't lend itself very readily to rock music. It's a gentle and ...
IAN ANDERSON Ideally, an instrument used for touch playing should be an electric with an accurate neck, frets in ...
STANLEY JORDAN Put your instrument into the hands of your Art and never your Art into the hands of your instrument!
IRVIN KAUFFMAN To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other,...
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY DOWNLOAD FREE 90541 I choose not to make a graveyard of my body for the rotting corpses of dead animals.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table ...
OTTO VON BISMARCK All the money will be used to help animals right here in Port Alberni, it will be used for medical e...
IRENE TOWELL May I never neither turn left nor turn right in my journey of life, but may I go straight to Christ ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH People are always the start for me... animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural b...
TANITH LEE God cannot and will not give us a sense of lasting pleasure apart from him, because it violates his ...
KYLE IDLEMAN There is a sense of danger in leaving what you know, even if what you know isn’t much. These mill ...
JOHN WILLIAM TUOHY I used to be into the Grateful Dead, so I understand the Phish thing.
ADAM SCOTT Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.
CALVIN COOLIDGE CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two i...
AMBROSE BIERCE NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.
AMBROSE BIERCE OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
AMBROSE BIERCE Okay, it's pretty obvious what we're doing here, people. If it's dead - fucking KILL IT
ROBERT KIRKMAN I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.
AMBROSE BIERCE The commission, with this order, has turned the people's public interest commission into an instrume...
ERNEST HOLLINGS I don't trust them but I'm learning to use them.
ADRIENNE RICH The lamb baa-ed vigorously as Mary dragged it into the manicure room, and Zel winced. She really sho...
SARAH BETH DURST Maybe the past is an anchor holding us back. Maybe, you have to let go of who you are to become who ...
SEX AND THE CITY You're not making a decision if you come to a fork in the road. There is no 'it' to take...
PAUL SAMUELSON Psychoanalysis is a terribly efficient instrument, and because it is more and more a prestigious ins...
JACQUES LACAN We're putting a total of almost 15 billion dollars of US money into the Iraqi security forces. Obvio...
JAMES JEFFREY You’re wondering whether this is a good idea. Because you’re smart and you see right through me,...
MEREDITH WILD He who fails to know his real and true competitor shall never be able to give a good account of his ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH If this is the end of the world, give me a fork and a knife.
DANA GOODYEAR He was armed with a bent fork. That's what he used to pry open the window.
LAURA MCELROY The purpose of having an open mind is the same as having an open mouth, the object being eventually ...
STEVE ALLEN SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and s...
AMBROSE BIERCE Dontopedology is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it
PRINCE PHILIP DUKE OF EDINBURGH . . . in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, ...
JEREMY BENTHAM For my Ph.D. thesis, I was measuring the electrical activity that triggers light emission from a bio...
EDITH WIDDER She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.
DIANA WYNNE JONES The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being a...
NEIL GAIMAN What is the Other?" they ask.
The Other is the one who taught me whatI should be like, but not ...
PAULO COELHO Tori joined us for dinner --in body, at least. She spent the meal practicing for a role in the next ...
KELLEY ARMSTRONG If you're not learning how to live off the land, then you're only learning how to survive in the sho...
J. N. MORGAN From my personal point of view, the Animals are dead. They killed themselves.
ERIC BURDON The right of bearing arms for a lawful purpose is not a right granted by the Constitution; neither i...
U.S. VS CRUIKSHAN GMAC is in some ways both the instrument for preservation of GM intermediate term and also an instru...
GLENN REYNOLDS GMAC is in some ways both the instrument for preservation of GM intermediate term and also an instru...
GLENN REYNOLDS Every faculty and virtue I possess can be used as an instrument with which to worry myself.
HALE WHITE If you have cancer of the stomach, doctors would go in with the instrument and remove that area of t...
WILLIAM PEINE PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. ...
AMBROSE BIERCE GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
AMBROSE BIERCE Death, especially violent death, will turn the meanest bastard in the world into a nice guy. Why is ...
LAURELL K. HAMILTON The sole objective of prime-time panel discussion often seems to be to thrust news makers' words dow...
ANUJ SOMANY If I am not that dead fish who go with the stream, I am also not that fish who jump into the bear's ...
MEVIN GORAYAH Genet was an actor in the play of his life, putting on masks, rearranging facts to suit his purpose ...
MEL GUSSOW When Republicans used reconciliation in 2001 for the Bush tax cuts, they used it to increase the def...
KENT CONRAD Look, my friends!' he called. 'Here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an elven princeling in! If it wer...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN We're not ruling this a suicide just yet. We've asked for an autopsy because of the instrument used ...
JASON MARKLE

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