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MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.


Ambrose Bierce

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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 American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE To safeguard democracy the people must have a keen sense of independence, self-respect, and their on...
MOHANDAS GANDHI Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; ...
IRA GERSHWIN Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; ...
J. P. SENN Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice...
J. P. SENN It is disgraceful to live at the cost of one's self-respect. Self-respect is the most vital factor i...
B. R. AMBEDKAR Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
ERIC HOFFER That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to w...
ADAM SMITH I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone... I'm just saying that I'm one-of-a-kind.
C LIONG the deceased don’t want you to forget about them. They just want you to move past it; not to dwell...
JUSTIN PYFROM People in life should not judge other people whoever they are whatever they do there religion or cre...
GARY F EVANS... Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or posse...
JOHN LOCKE Self-forgiveness is essentially inseparable from self-respect and self-responsibility. With self for...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
AMBROSE BIERCE Try to look at causes and solve problems. Do not concentrate on military solutions. Do not seek mili...
EQBAL AHMED ...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disput...
THOMAS JEFFERSON It's my view that human dignity - an attribute which for years has been taken by the Left in Bri...
MAURICE SAATCHI Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
AMBROSE BIERCE I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C. The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people you...
FREDRIK BACKMAN Closed eyes, heart not beating, but a living love.
AVIS COREA Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissis...
CORNEL WEST Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt.
BERTHOLD AUERBACH Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt
BERTHOLD AUERBACH You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my con...
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my conte...
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY Each man lives in his own universe and when he dies the world is over
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA Like a deep sad note
played beneath the ocean
waving through the orb
the memories of ...
PAWAN MISHRA Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you.
ALLY CARTER Another grave fault in our election system is that the campaigns are unduly strung out. [Election Ad...
JOSEPH P. HARRIS As for the politicians, like everyone else in America, they were motivated by money, not ideals.
CHARLES DICKENS Indeed, it's not a stretch to say that most voters no longer choose their representatives; instead, ...
BARACK OBAMA You can tell there's an election coming soon. People are already using the word "fundamentally" in e...
BENJAMIN KANE ETHRIDGE ‎"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
- Edward R. Murrow
EDWARD R. MURROW To bring the matter to one point, Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to g...
THOMAS PAINE In other words, our constitution was designed by people who were idealistic but not ideological. The...
BILL CLINTON يا راكعين لأمريكا , أنا بريء منكم
ناجي العلي All believers are members of the same body and should be viewed and treated that way.
HENRY HON In politics, familiarity doesn't breed contempt. It breeds votes.
PAUL LAZARSFELD You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently.
Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war m...
SARAH J. MAAS If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of history, it is difficult to avoid the concl...
ARTHUR KOESTLER ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
AMBROSE BIERCE My government has promised to comprehensively respect the independence of the judiciary.
VICTOR PONTA We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that f...
THOMAS JEFFERSON We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN The surest aid in combating the male's disease of self-contempt is to be loved by a clever woman.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Never give up on you. In order to make a difference you would have to somehow be different.
JOHNNIE DENT JR. To the Muslim woman, the hijab provides a sense of empowerment. It is a personal decision to dress m...
RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH We die a day at a time
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA Be careful of relying on the opinion of others, these are the same people that like liver.
NANETTE L. AVERY The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were both justified by an appeal to the emancipation of women,...
NINA POWER In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take.
ADLAI E. STEVENSON II I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES His cheek bones were protruding and eyes were sunk. I waved at him but he stole the gaze.
RANJANI RAMACHANDRAN You must step forward, Arutha. You will never be the man for whom you were named, and you will never...
RAYMOND E. FEIST A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT The most admirable quality among people is when we pause and think of something to say, without ripp...
EFRAT CYBULKIEWICZ Become addicted to constant and never-ending self-improvement.
ANTHONY D'ANGELO Become addicted to constant and never-ending self-improvement.
ANTHONY J. D'ANGELO Become addicted to constant and never-ending self improvement.
ANTHONY J. D'ANGELO Easing back in her seat, Grace watched the children in the playground opposite, coats off, faces flu...
KATHLEEN TESSARO When she was younger, she felt that he wanted to know everything about her, but she was sometimes af...
MICHAEL STEIN I am a lawyer and 22 years the mayor of Davao City. I served as congressman of the first district fo...
RODRIGO DUTERTE HYPOCRITE, n. One who, profession virtues that he does not respect secures the advantage of seeming ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Respect of time keep update with sequence of events going on in given moment. One who respects time ...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Respect of time keep update with sequence of events going on in given moment. One who respects time ...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA It seems to be Latin American destiny to always have the United States say 'amen.
WARREN EYSTER The inscription on his gravestone had felt so wholly insufficient the moment she saw it. Just a name...
STUART NADLER What we want, above all things on earth in our public men, is independence. It is one great defect i...
JOHN C. CALHOUN Look to your heart and soul first, rather than looking to your head first, when choosing. Rather tha...
JEFFREY R. ANDERSON The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison
SARAH J. MAAS I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you.
SARAH J. MAAS He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain...
SARAH J. MAAS Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Hodor," said Hodor.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You do what you love, what you need
SARAH J. MAAS I turned.
Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere...
SARAH J. MAAS Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.
THUCYDIDES Death is tough for the people left behind on earth.
PRATEEKSHA MALIK People in the real world always say, when something terrible happens, that the sadness and loss and ...
FREDRIK BACKMAN When his wife was at his side, she was also in front of him, marking out the horizon of his life. No...
MILAN KUNDERA Learn to live in this world with self-respect. You should always cherish some ambition of doing some...
B. R. AMBEDKAR The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humili...
KARL MARX It is an extremely unfortunate fact, that there are those who see the morale of respect as something...
C. JOYBELL C. She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going t...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY We Are All Infinite
STEPHEN CHBOSKY (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes...
JEAN SASSON You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY That one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are ALIVE.
STEPHAN CHBOSKY Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aun...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all beco...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

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