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OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof --an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.


Ambrose Bierce

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Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters.
JEFFREY FRY Optimism, n. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE It is what it is, it is what you make it.
JAMES DURBIN Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. To stand on the
brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation—with no feeli...
ASK AND IT IS GIVEN It is what it is, and it ain't nothin' else... Everything is clearly, openly, plainly delive...
DAN FLAVIN It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER She buys "mixed salad greens" for seven dollars a bag, triple-washed with who knows what. And to get...
RUDOLPH DELSON I regret that I wasn't more successful with my marriages, but it is what it is.
TED TURNER Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play.
J.R. RIM See the world for what it is.
BEAUTIFUL!
ANTHONY T. HINCKS Life is weird and wonderful like that, is it not.
SONYA.E.WILLIAMS PEACE IS THE OBJECTIVE TO WAR, BUT THE BLOOD RUNNETH STILL
NATALIE URQUIETA Our life is a series of moments. Let them all go. Moments. All gathering towards this one.
NOW IS GOOD I am Happy and satisfied with what I am. 10000 will take me wrong, 1000 will go against me, 100 will...
NEHA KOTHARI If our mind was an ocean then every now and then we would have the perfect storm happening in it.Gar...
GARY F EVANS... His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING You know, I don't think my music is important, I don't think it's changing the world, I ...
SUFJAN STEVENS Unpredictability means what it means. I don't know how you define it. It is what it is.
MICHAEL KEATON Tell your story to the universe and Let your actions speak LOVE.' No matter what it is.
NAPZ CHERUB PELLAZO With '10,000,' our aim was to make a film that was entertaining and a roller-coaster ride; i...
STEVEN STRAIT To search the sands of a lost desert for truth and justice in this world today you might as well be ...
GARY F EVANS... How do you know if something is real? That’s easy. Does it change you? Does it form you? Does it g...
C. JOYBELL C. If the best is possible, than good is never enough and only do the best.
ROBERT SIAHAAN The love you get, is equal to the love you give.
BEN OAK Love is blind, and a deaf-mute too.
PATRICK ROTHFUSS Mother Superior jump the gun...
-The Beatles, Happiness is a Warm Gun
LAUREN MYRACLE When I die it will be game over,... but I know one life is short, to be selfish is not the best deci...
DEYTH BANGER Money is not everything.
BEN OAK Einmal hat ihm einer im Schlaf die Schuhe ausgezogen, reingeschissen und wieder angezogen. Um diese ...
HEINZ STRUNK But I do not do these things because we are a family. I do them because they are common decencies. T...
JOHNATHAN SAFRAN FOER He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as sim...
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER Our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER They do not desire anything more than everything they have known.
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER I never like it when a celebrity goes on Twitter and says, 'This isn't true!' It is what...
HARRY STYLES 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give...
JAMES C. DOBSON I take the good with the bad. I always wanted to be a comic, and part of that, for me, was that I wa...
ERIK GRIFFIN What is it that makes you so angry, bothers you so deeply, that you're compelled to act?
CRAIG GROESCHEL I'm probably the least harsh on myself, and I try not to scrutinize everything about my body. As...
KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN Today is about the now, the moment you live in, so do now what you want to do
SOTONYE ANGA You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unb...
WHY YAWNING IS CONTAGIOUS I saw that there is no Nature,
That Nature doesn’t exist,
That there are hills, valleys,...
ALBERTO CAEIRO Dedication is the preparation to success!
WERNER BOTHA What if — is more complicated than that? What if maybe opposite is true as well? Because, if bad c...
DONNA TARTT 37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married.
JAMES C. DOBSON Timing is everything.
MOLLY SIMS Timing is everything.
TOMMY SHAW What Fucks me... is that we both are the same... we all walk on the same path... but everything is a...
DEYTH BANGER I'm not an Emontional, but how???
I live with the thought that "Nothing can be returned, it has...
DEYTH BANGER The Biggest Threat to our Democracy, Freedoms and Future is Leadership that fosters and Appeases the...
MICHAEL HARRIS Life is not all about sticking or stopping your thoughts to old memories but LIFE STARTS when you st...
NEHA KOTHARI The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a...
JEANETTE CORON I will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and resplendent. Now I will begin...
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER sometimes the most simple things in the world can be the most beautiful.
ROWENA BEAUMONT CHERRY You get to the point where you're like, 'I'm just doing me, and if people don't like...
BEBE REXHA I’m glad I see with my eyes and not the pages I’ve read.
ALBERTO CAEIRO When push comes to shove would people do what they felt was right, to get justice done or would they...
GARY F EVANS... The king may rule the kingdom, but it's the queen who moves the board.
D.M. TIMNEY Things don’t have significance: they only have existence.
Things are the only hidden meaning ...
ALBERTO CAEIRO Ques eso? Queso?
NOLAN J. VANDER HAAGEN The opportunity to decieve others is ever present and often tempting, and each instance of deception...
SAM HARRIS The secret of my success is my hairspray.
RICHARD GERE War is no solution to peace.
BEN OAK I believe that there is a Matrix and... to be more accurate I am in the Pornography Matrix.
DEYTH BANGER Typing is the future of talking and to don't forgot and brother of feature.
DEYTH BANGER Timing is everything with relationships.
RASHIDA JONES If I knew I was going to die tomorrow,
And Spring came the day after tomorrow,
I would die...
ALBERTO CAEIRO You release the pain of the past and press on. It's a new day, and God is doing a new thing. He want...
CRAIG GROESCHEL I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES Do I believe a thing has limits!? Of course! Nothing exists that doesn’t have limits. Existence me...
ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS Your mind is a Microcosm of strength and power. There’s all the magic you need in it. When all els...
CHINONYE J. CHIDOLUE The man held himself still and turned his milk-flooded eyes on her. Fin felt something like vertigo ...
A.S. PETERSON Life is a racket. Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything's a racket.
NICK TOSCHES There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him.
CASSANDRA CLARE When you're recording to analog tape, it captures performance and you can't necessarily mani...
DAVE GROHL The man stopped talking and was looking at the sunset.
But what does someone who hates and love...
ALBERTO CAEIRO We all are wearing many hundred glasses of different colors. Therefore, everyone sees the world in d...
MUDITHA CHAMPIKA I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm bringing the dead back to life...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI Ultimately love is everything.
M. SCOTT PECK This is the sixty-nine,” I told him,
presenting the magazine in front of him. I put my finger...
JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER The fear of God is the only cure for the fear of people.
CRAIG GROESCHEL Life is a re-discovery.
BRIAN BLESSED If you think that life is a celebration full of party poppers and merry go rounds it's not it's a ga...
GARY F EVANS... Life Is a Misconception.
DEYTH BANGER Life is a desire!
DEYTH BANGER To trust someone you must firstly remember that it is a two way street that will go all the way if y...
GARY F EVANS... You know, there's nothing you can do about your public image. It is what it is. I just try to do...
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN I'm just not into trying to convince people like me. I always say to myself, 'It is what it ...
NENE LEAKES Wrong?
So you are saying, I'm wrong okay then... It's not possible every time to be right, one ...
DEYTH BANGER It is what it is. I balled out, had some good years, man, had fun and did it with some guys and made...
CALVIN JOHNSON Everyone is the Umbrella Man and he is everyone. Every cough, sneeze, smile and wave means both ever...
CRAIG CLEVENGER The river of knowledge has no depth.
CHINONYE J. CHIDOLUE Then that's what the Northern Lights are. All the lives that we're not living.
ADI ALSAID I'm one of my sensations.
ALBERTO CAEIRO Courage is feeling justly afraid and yet still doing what is right.
SHANNON HALE There is six billion reasons for everything to go wrong and only one to get it right
JULIO DAVILA Godliness with contentment is rare.
CRAIG GROESCHEL

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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.
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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.
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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