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MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.


Ambrose Bierce

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AMBROSE BIERCE Most guys in high school wore clothes seen only by their classmates. I wore clothes seen by the worl...
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE I really enjoy making breakfast and dinner. But breakfast is a good excuse to have some dessert befo...
TIA MOWRY ONLY THE SMALL SECRETS NEED TO BE PROTECTED. THE BIG ONES ARE KEPT SECRET BY PUBLIC INCREDULITY.
MARSHALL MCLUHAN We gave a good account of ourselves, but Reed-Custer gradually wore us down. Pivonka had a good game...
DON BROWN Maria looked at the TARDIS... 'Is that really your carriage?' She asked. 'It is not very good, monsi...
JAMES GOSS We kept the ball a lot and we just wore them down a little bit. The first game sets the tone for the...
BOB EASON When Justin died and we got the call offering the carriage, I immediately asked for Mike.
VICKI BOSLEY How about this?' Simmon asked me. "Which is worse, stealing a pie or killing Ambrose?"
I gave i...
PATRICK ROTHFUSS We wore our safety pins on the inside of our clothes.
TINA WEYMOUTH We knew what we had to do and we just kept going after them. I think we really wore them down and la...
TONY HUNT Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool
JOSH BILLINGS Impending doom, it was a familiar sweater, we all wore it and as scratchy as it felt against our ski...
HOLLY HOOD My character was obnoxious, had stinky feet and wore things like purple tights and a yellow top. I h...
ANDREA BARBER It's a terrible shame he's a Renegade, isn't it? Otherwise, you could have asked him to stay for din...
MARISSA MEYER The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE We focused very heavily on giving customers what they asked for, and kept the installation and the t...
ALEX FREUDMANN I get asked a lot about the Rock N' Sock Connection.
MICK FOLEY An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage.
SYRUS (PUBLILIUS SYRUS) She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despai...
OSCAR WILDE Growing up, Guess always had these amazing billboards and cool affordable clothing. I wore it then, ...
TIESTO It's part of the general global hypnotism to accept lies as the new truth.
ALAN RUDOLPH A newspaper reported that I spent $30,000 a year buying Paris clothes and that women hate me for it....
JACKIE KENNEDY It is wise to consider a matter carefully before jumping in carelessly. -Nabil N. Jamal
NABIL N. JAMAL Hypnotism is always a popular event. There is usually a great turnover.
JANET FOLDENAUER If I were to be asked to be a model selling clothes, it would be worth millions of dollars,
DUSTIN HOFFMAN I kept my clothes on. I borrowed money.
ESTELLA WARREN Incredulity and indifference were her only reaction: incredulity, because she could not conceive of ...
AYN RAND But now we must have clothes that keep us dry/ And pay our rent and not swear in the street/ And set...
JENNY JOSEPH CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table ...
OTTO VON BISMARCK Psychoanalysis will fade away just as mesmerism and phrenology did, and for the same reason - its ex...
FREDERICK CREWS I would love to design a maternity clothing line. It is so hard to find stylish clothes for pregnant...
KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN I figure it's a European thing to eat cheese and crackers before a meal - that's my afternoo...
ANDREW LUCK The first step towards philosophy is incredulity
DENIS DIDEROT Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms round the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of lang...
DAVID MITCHELL We express incredulity that the senior police officer would have made extravagant claims from the ou...
GARETH PEIRCE My aunt Caroline was really a character. She lived and worked in my grandfather's old house and ...
JAMIE WYETH We talked about it before the game, to get a good start. They didn't play their best and we got a co...
HENRIK SEDIN But hell would have to freeze over before I ever wore a dress.
JULIE ANNE PETERS Richard Chamberlain on The Slipper and the Rose was lovely to work with. He wore the clothes so beau...
JULIE HARRIS It was sad, like those businessmen who came to work in serious clothes but wore colorful ties in a m...
TERRY PRATCHETT We just kept subbing in fresh bodies and we wore them down. We're a strong team depth-wise. We've go...
TIM TUCKER Well, Valek, any new promotions?” the Commander asked
“No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortu...
MARIA V. SNYDER I still have the shirt I wore my first time on Johnny Carson's show. Only now I use it as a tabl...
ELLEN DEGENERES Ah! good Sir! no Whores before Dinner, I beseech you."

[Love's Last Shift]
COLLEY CIBBER When we first started recording, it was before rock, so people thought we were hillbilly hicks. That...
PHIL EVERLY In elementary school, people made fun of me because my skin was so white and I had black hair and wo...
ALYSON HANNIGAN Before the group left, Gary asked for my phone number, and the next day he called to ask me to dinne...
DONNA RICE An earthly dog of the carriage breed; Who, having failed of the modern speed, Now asked asylum and I...
ROBERT FROST Friends were like clothes: fine while they lasted but eventually they wore thin or you grew out of t...
DAVID NICHOLLS I like to think I'm a good mechanic for the company. 'Oh well, we sprung a leak? Call Ambros...
DEAN AMBROSE Don't ever take a dramatic lesson. They will try to put your voice in a dinner jacket, and peopl...
DALE ROBERTSON It's part of the general global hypnotism to accept lies as the new truth.
ALAN RUDOLPH I archive a lot of my clothes and have them wrapped up and in boxes. I call them 'little tombs&#...
HALLE BERRY I'm skin and bone when they see me. I'm tall and skinny. The first thing the wife said to her husban...
ALEXANDER BUNEGIN I think our numbers wore them down. We subbed liberally and kept fresh feet out there. I think that ...
KEVIN ALBURY Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.
SAMUEL PEPYS You may be embarrassed about the way you looked and the wacky clothes you wore when you were young, ...
JOHN OATES I have always believed that there is nothing greater than a life in rock n' roll - it has to be ...
ATUL GAWANDE We are responsible for our incredulity.
SAMANTHA POWER Throughout history, clothes represented who you were; they are a great vehicle for explaining who yo...
IRIS APFEL I was listening to music long before rock 'n roll.
BILL WYMAN I never have had blonde hair. I have never had straight hair. I never wear pink clothes or spray tan...
CARLY CHAIKIN A dinner invitation, once accepted, is a sacred obligation. If you die before the dinner takes place...
WARD MCALLISTER They wore us down. They're a good team.
COREY THACKER And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner.
BIBLE I never thought I was a bad person. I just thought I was the one good person living in a world of ba...
DEAN AMBROSE She ate from my plates and wore my clothes and slept in my bed like Goldilocks while the benevolent,...
ANN PATCHETT Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool.
JOSH BILLINGS The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
DENIS DIDEROT I was listening to music long before rock 'n roll.
BILL WYMAN Feast of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397 To the good man to die is gain. The foolish fea...
ST. AMBROSE To revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence with which the worl...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I think the kids in school that laughed at the clothes that we wore and the house that we lived in, ...
JIMMY DEAN There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets ...
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON O you who believe! let those whom your right hands possess and those of you who have not attained to...
QURAN Let's say you go to a friend's wedding, or Thanksgiving, or Halloween. It'd be great the...
MIKE MCCUE There were plenty of women around who dressed smartly, and plenty more who dressed to impress, but t...
HARUKI MURAKAMI In the beginning, all that was asked that they change the word from the N-word to Negro, and they sa...
MARGIE OAKLEY Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.
JEAN-FRANçOIS LYOTARD The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more ...
RAYMOND CHANDLER The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more ...
RAYMOND CHANDLER ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth b...
AMBROSE BIERCE I have a few girlfriends, but nearly all my friends are guys. I don't think I ever wore girl clo...
KATHARINE ISABELLE A pleasure companion on a journey is as good as a carriage. [Lat., Comes jucundus in via pro vehic...
SYRUS (PUBLILIUS SYRUS) It was an enjoyable show to do. The committee was wonderful and served a great dinner to us on Frida...
JANET TAYLOR Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL All through dinner Arturo and I held hands under the table like a couple of kids, and that made the ...
HELEN OYEYEMI She was dressed in Indian muslin, and beneath it she only wore a chemise of fine cambric, and by the...
JACQUES CASANOVA My fans kept asking where they could get clothes like Destiny's Child's, so it was only natu...
BEYONCE KNOWLES CAABA, n. A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved a...
AMBROSE BIERCE You'd tell the world what your best friend wore to sleep if you thought it made a good enough story.
PATRICIA BRIGGS The stuff that coach Barnes gave us to work with is real good. Since Day One, he kept on saying, 'Ha...
DUSTIN SCOTT Back then, we wore our own clothes. There were no stylists. I would wear the same pants with differe...
BRETT SOMERS Clothes don't make the man, but clothes have got many a man a good job.
HERBERT HAROLD VREELAND Clothes don't make the man, but clothes have got many a man a good job
HERBERT HAROLD VREELAND It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
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