FastSaying

PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of foreordination, which means that all things are programmed, but does not affirm their occurrence, that being only an implication from other doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore. With the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a reverent belief in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.


Ambrose Bierce

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom w...
JOAN DIDION We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It...
COLSON WHITEHEAD Being present is being connected to All Things.
S. KELLEY HARRELL, M. DIV. Doctrines, no matter which path of human endeavor they come from, must serve the humans, not the hum...
ABHIJIT NASKAR Food Allergies Are Not Due to Food, Rather Are Due to the Constant Contamination of That Food That Y...
THEHEALTHFOODGURU A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being d...
SIMONE WEIL If you pour everything you have into this life, this world, which is temporary and fading, you're je...
CRAIG GROESCHEL The two men had a conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had exchanged numbers a...
ARUNDHATI ROY To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduc...
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY Each day I will accomplish one thing on my to do list.
LAILAH GIFTY AKITA They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most gr...
ANTHONY TROLLOPE Be kind. We never know what people are going through. Give grace and mercy because one day your circ...
GERMANY KENT Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not an...
BIBLE Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo...
GERMANY KENT I believe that nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. We shall never be able to...
CHARLES SPURGEON the room of the spirit is the mind and the seat of the spirit is the heart. What we give room to muc...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men are eve...
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER Since in early youth it cannot be known what ends are likely to occur to us in the course of life, p...
IMMANUEL KANT Dive into the river of the present, but don't thrash about, go with the flow.
JIM GENOVESE How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine."
The Q...
LEWIS CARROLL This brings us to Anarchism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men shou...
BENJAMIN TUCKER The Biggest Threat to our Democracy, Freedoms and Future is Leadership that fosters and Appeases the...
MICHAEL HARRIS The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, is certainly one of the...
H. G. [HERBERT GEORGE] WELLS The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of Jesus, is certainly one of the...
H. G. WELLS The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Neither can such a doctrine argue: it simply does not understand that other doctrines exist, can exi...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached, as there is to most things you wan...
MARGARET MITCHELL The distinction between liberty and licentiousness is a repetition of the Protean doctrine of implic...
JAMES MADISON The earth is an arena of champions. We are all champions. We all did overcome millions of potential ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH But it is common knowledge that religions don’t want conviction, on the basis of reasons, but fait...
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER An empty book is like an infant's soul, in which anything may be written. It is capable of all thing...
THOMAS TRAHERNE Entrepreneur, you're either raising the bar of excellence or, you're exhaling at the bar which is ex...
ONYI ANYADO The philosophy of Hobb...
HANNAH ARENDT The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a...
JEANETTE CORON All movements go too far, and this is certainly true of the movement toward subjectivity, whi...
BERTRAND RUSSELL The Book of Mormon is in absolute harmony from start to finish with other sacred scriptures. There i...
HEBER J. GRANT I think that many people will intentionally overlook all of the lifeless facts about their relations...
C. JOYBELL C. To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to hav...
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY It is not enough to hold that God did great things for our fathers: not enough to pride ourselves on...
BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT We could say that the human race is a great coauthorship in which we are collaborating with God and ...
WENDELL BERRY My cool judgement is, that if all the other doctrines of devils which have been committed to writing...
JOHN WESLEY Any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man. Any...
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL One must simply take the days of their lives as they happen. If you spend time worrying over what is...
R.J. GONZALES One of Paul's most important teachings... is the doctrine of what we call "justification by faith". ...
J. B. PHILLIPS Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the w...
BIBLE Doctrines don't govern policy. They provide a conceptual framework by which policymakers approac...
BARTON GELLMAN Friendship is a double-edged sword one side it can be great and true but the other side it spells be...
GARY F EVANS... David cuts through all the many needs, wants, and desires that may have been bouncing around inside ...
CRAIG GROESCHEL When you are true to yourself, you will find yourself more easily able to pursue the things that mat...
ELIZABETH ALRAUNE Even after the dehadhyas (the belief that 'I am the body') has gone, people will say, "I saw you eat...
DADA BHAGWAN Judge not lest ye be judged.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doc...
BIBLE Why be an ostrich?
MARGARET MITCHELL Your mind is not just the wonderful power house that empowers your action and steps or the driver of...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Leave the senses and the workings of the intellect, and all that the senses and the intellect can pe...
KALLISTOS WARE This is not remarkable, for, as we know, reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the...
ROBERT PENN WARREN One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers whi...
RICHARD DAWKINS In order to honor God with your wealth, you first have to admit that you are rich. Most people won't...
CRAIG GROESCHEL If New Testament Christianity is to reappear today with its power and joy and courage, men must reca...
J. B. PHILLIPS If Christianity should happen to be true -- that is to say, if its God is the real God of the univer...
G. K. CHESTERTON I'm asking God to bless you with something that unsettles you, disturbs you, and upsets you.
CRAIG GROESCHEL Do no look for that ideal person to be with, be that ideal person.
JEFFREY FRY This is my fundamental teaching: that there is no division between this and that. That is contained ...
OSHO PEACE IS THE OBJECTIVE TO WAR, BUT THE BLOOD RUNNETH STILL
NATALIE URQUIETA I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES When one pauses to consider how thoroughly corrupted our censors must be by this time, it is difficu...
JUDITH WRIGHT And above all, you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its pain...
C.S. LEWIS Feast of Andrew the Apostle This means that we do not know what are the limits of human history, ...
LESSLIE NEWBIGIN A system of doctrine has risen up during the last three centuries, in which faith or spiritual-minde...
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN When we propose to ignore in a great man's teaching those doctrines which it has in common with the ...
C. S. LEWIS Do you know great people are continually quoted while the average always misquote great people?
ONYI ANYADO May I never neither turn left nor turn right in my journey of life, but may I go straight to Christ ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The belief in God is not therefore based on the perception of design in nature. Belief in design in ...
CHAPMAN COHEN It was only after the illness that I understood how important it is to affirm one’s own destiny. I...
C.G. JUNG 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 If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of C...
ROGER WILLIAMS Jesus did not finish all the urgent tasks in Palestine or all the things He would have liked to do, ...
CHARLES E. HUMMEL PANTHEISM, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is ...
AMBROSE BIERCE First, then, State Socialism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men sho...
BENJAMIN TUCKER Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A ...
JOSEPH ADDISON Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. ...
JOSEPH ADDISON Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th...
DEYTH BANGER Put your mind to it and you will do it. This is how the impossible become possible
SOTONYE ANGA ...the salient feature of the absurd age I was at--an age which for all its alleged awkwardness, is ...
MARCEL PROUST I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your pers...
SOCRATES But the more we search the Scriptures, the more we perceive, in this doctrine, the fundamental truth...
JOHN NELSON DARBY She said, "Right now, while we have this time, I'm not going to do any of that other stuff. I'm goin...
CRAIG GROESCHEL system, let this first be established, that I am a part of the whole which is governed by nature; ne...
MARCUS AURELIUS He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself
LOIS LOWRY The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction...
ALBERT EINSTEIN If you accept a democratic system, this means that you are prepared to put up with those of its work...
GEORGE F. KENNAN May we be strengthened with the understanding that being blessed does not mean that we shall always ...
HEBER J. GRANT Millions of people acknowledge today that they do not know the meaning of life.
JAMES C. DOBSON Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin gold-fish bowls filled to the brim with the cleare...
MARGARET MITCHELL The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense ...
CARL SAGAN SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous do...
AMBROSE BIERCE If it were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-...
JOHN STUART MILL This too to remember. If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes. If he mystifies to...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY They're not trying to undo history but trying to say that these things are rather adornments and inc...
HUGO YOUNG #4. Spend more time considering areas of agreement than disagreement. The doctrines you share with o...
THOMAS BROOKS

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