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ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.


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 best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
VOLTAIRE (FRANçOIS-MARIE AROUET) The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
VOLTAIRE But in answer to your question about the conspiracy angle, I think that any historian worth his salt...
OLIVER STONE How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, Actio...
PLUTARCH Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for bot...
JOHN ANDREW HOLMES Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for bot...
JOHN ANDREW Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenate...
ALBERT EINSTEIN Understanding is nothing else than conception caused by speech.
THOMAS HOBBES It was a hot-tempered day by the defense. Real hot-tempered.
CECIL SAPP Eventually I came across another passage. This is what it said:
I am not commanding you, but I ...
NICHOLAS SPARKS To kill a mockingbird. If you haven't read it, I think you should because it is very interesting.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I will never forget the vision of Jamie walking towards me.
NICHOLAS SPARKS As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, the...
NICHOLAS SPARKS You don't have to learn much out of books, it's like if you want to learn about cows, you go milk on...
HARPER LEE You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them.
HARPER LEE I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.
DEMOSTHENES When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, "Action," and which was...
PLUTARCH Some people never take a chance and never know what it's like to live life to the full.
CHLOE THURLOW The conscious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any end, is art.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON Well, you can't know it without something having been sneezed.
A.A. MILNE We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet.
Even longer,' Pooh answered.”
...
A.A. MILNE By sincerity, a man gains physical, mental and linguistic straightforwardness, and harmonious tenden...
MAHAVIRA You believe there was a conspiracy between Ms. Buchanan and Ms. Crouch?
VINCENT NOLAN There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the ...
MARK TWAIN Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipi...
THOMAS CARLYLE There has obviously been a conspiracy between the accused and certain officials which needs to be pr...
K.K. PAUL Proper action, not a fancy speech, is the cure.
JEFFREY BENJAMIN How do you know about the world is real?...
How?...
How you don't think that you are locke...
DEYTH BANGER When a lot of voices, make up a noise, the man who is silent represents a voice.
APURVA GAGLANI Lᴏᴠᴇ ɪs ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪɴᴅ ... Yᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ sᴇᴇ ɪᴛ, ʙᴜᴛ ʏᴏ...
NICHOLAS SPARKS She filed the image away as an excellent and insulting question to ask the earl at an utterly inappr...
GAIL CARRIGER The scientific method gives us information by testing and repeating observable things so that we can...
LEWIS N. ROE We begin to fight. The wind and I. Horns locked. Battling each other with elements.
LAURA DOCKRILL A Ritual to Read to Each Other


If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and...
WILLIAM STAFFORD A plan without action is not a plan. It's a speech.
BOONE PICKENS France was a long despotism tempered by epigrams.
THOMAS CARLYLE The gap between understanding and misunderstanding can best be bridged by thought!
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH In a world where pleasure rules, people tend to be undeveloped in every way. " A House Like a Lotus
MADELEINE L’ENGLE Subject the material world to the higher ends by understanding it in all its relations to daily life...
ELLEN SWALLOW RICHARDS Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempe...
WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempe...
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is the distrust of people tempe...
WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE This case presents the tension between property rights and speech. When disclosure also presents a m...
IAN BALLON Oratory is the masterful art. Poetry, painting, music, sculpture, architecture please, thrill, inspi...
DAVID JOSIAH BREWER European values, civil rights, freedom of speech, freedom of informatio,n and freedom of assembly ar...
CARLES PUIGDEMONT Speech is the mirror of action.
SOLON Why must we socialize, if we seek independence? For we achieve such through others And yet if we ret...
XAVIER CLIFF 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. Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON A man who sees action in inaction and inaction in action has understanding among men and discipline ...
BHAGAVAD GITA The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learn...
HARPER LEE The role of the Christian is to let other people know what Jesus has done, not to think of themselve...
LEWIS N. ROE Naturalistic atheism debunks itself. It has no power to explain even some of the most basic principl...
LEWIS N. ROE It's important to understand that if someone calls themselves a Christian, it does not automatically...
LEWIS N. ROE A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung...
PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE There's certainly an issue of free speech here. We're not saying by any means that these books shoul...
DANIEL GREENE When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing w...
A.A. MILNE Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and s...
CARTER CROCKER The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy
HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his first minute, after noon, is night.
JOHN DONNE You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of underst...
AMBROSE GWINETT BIERCE Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understa...
AMBROSE BIERCE We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action.
SAROJINI NAIDU I loved her for what I couldn't understand about her. Love searches for the mystery in the beloved, ...
JOHN DUFRESNE Absolutism tempered by assassination.
COUNT ERNEST F.N. VON MUNSTER Absolutism tempered by assassination
COUNT MUNSTER (after thanking media) It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we ...
DAVID ROCKEFELLER The shortest distance between two jokes makes a perfect speech.
ORLANDO A. BATTISTA Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.
DANIEL KEYES Speech is always bolder than action.
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently.
Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war m...
SARAH J. MAAS If you feel your wife does not understand you, i suggest you try understanding her
SOTONYE ANGA Understanding, and action proceeding from understanding and guided by it, is one weapon against the ...
JAMES AGEE Plunging in “truths” about God is like walking on the bottom of a sea that is not there, searchi...
MARIANA FULGER Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent c...
FRANCIS QUARLES I'm innocent. It's a conspiracy by you know who.
GARY GLITTER Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, leads to ruin.
TACITUS Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, lead to ruin
PUBLIUS CORNELIUS TACITUS It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or...
JOSEPH RATZINGER Understanding the OODA loop enables a commander to compress time - that is, the time between observi...
ROBERT CORAM In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.
PYTHAGORAS [Henley said his family has tempered his outlook.] I think there's more of a balance in the music, ....
DON HENLEY When looking for evidence that something exists, it's silly to start by assuming that it is impossib...
LEWIS N. ROE Using the scientific knowledge that we currently possess, we can take simple logical steps, backed b...
LEWIS N. ROE I tried to think of a vice I want to sacrifice, and ended up reasoning that I need my bad habits, de...
SARA BAUME Education, n.: That which discloses the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understand...
AMBROSE BIERCE It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It m...
MAHATMA GANDHI History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN We’ve Only Just Begun Drive to the Broken Shillelagh and talk to Pierce. Watch the cut scene. Make...
THE CHEAT MISTRESS If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live wi...
JOAN POWERS Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?'
'Supposing it didn't,' said Pooh...
A.A. MILNE By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.
E.M. FORSTER Action has meaning only in relationship, and without understanding relationship, action on any level...
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI The line between a bribe and a legal contribution is very thin, but it is that line that keeps you o...
LARRY NOBLE

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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.
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.
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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