FastSaying

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long. It has been largely superseded by a more complex electrical device worn upon another part of the person; and this is rapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the preachment.


Ambrose Bierce

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SEAN MURDOCK This field is part of an active, diversified agricultural operation and ... is irreplaceable. It is ...
JOE LEVERONI The king may rule the kingdom, but it's the queen who moves the board.
D.M. TIMNEY Out in the ocean, a rope is put around the man's neck. The other end of the rope is attached to an o...
JIMMY BRESLIN Silence has been destroyed, but also the idea that it's important to learn how another person th...
GARY SHTEYNGART He wept because he was afraid now that he could not save Gabriel. He no longer cared about himself
LOIS LOWRY The more rapidly a civilization progresses, the sooner it dies for another to rise in its place.
HAVELOCK ELLIS There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end o...
SOLOMON NORTHUP 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 Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play.
J.R. RIM Life is an audition.
THOMAS FLAJNIK - ANTICHIMERAPODAL It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER But just as haste and restlessness are typical of our present-day life, so change also takes place m...
GUSTAV STRESEMANN Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. 19. Those who are the happiest are not necessarily those for whom life has been easiest. Emotional s...
JAMES C. DOBSON Nebraskans are known for giving of themselves and that quality is part of what makes our state such ...
DAVE HEINEMAN It truly is a family entertainment place. That was the main intent. It's more than just an indoor go...
DAN TAYLOR While that kind of fabrication still takes place, the odds of it lasting very long are significantly...
BILL MITCHELL It is a quiet and peaceful place - and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea trage...
ROBERT BALLARD It is a quiet and peaceful place - and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea trage...
ROBERT D. BALLARD Gang violence in America is not a sudden problem. It has been a part of urban life for years, offeri...
DAVE REICHERT Knowledge is power! It definitely is strength as well! The strongest person sans knowledge is like a...
CHANDRABABU V.S. All of us, together, are the unlovable, the unreformable. We, the people, who are deemed incapable o...
DREW HAYES All propaganda or popularization involves a putting of the complex into the simple, but such a move ...
TERRY EAGLETON When she awakes, she knows where she is. This place, this ancient place sears one’s soul with reco...
VICTORIA KAHLER Advocacy groups in the USA, as in other countries, may not be able to silence this hateful, cowardly...
CHRISTINA ENGELA I regret that I wasn't more successful with my marriages, but it is what it is.
TED TURNER In an organic environment, every place is unique, and the different places also cooperate, with no p...
CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER The more living patterns there are in a place - a room, a building, or a town - the more it comes to...
CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY It has been nice to own a building that has room for growth. To me, being located in the strip mall ...
JEFF MERTZ Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overloa...
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters.
JEFFREY FRY An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up a...
PAUL THEROUX Of all the various kinds of sexual intercourse, this has the least to recommend it. As an amusement,...
MARK TWAIN Of all the various kinds of sexual intercourse, this has the least to recommend it. As an amusement,...
MARK TWAIN For men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes place among the other affairs of the day, and...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM As an actor and as a person you come together with being in familiar territory although that has not...
ROBERT REDFORD Life is weird and wonderful like that, is it not.
SONYA.E.WILLIAMS Reach out and help others. If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. Be a vessel, be the c...
GERMANY KENT An intelligent person suffers much more than the duffers and it is largely because of the behaviour ...
ANUJ SOMANY At this very early stage of an attempt to put in important lows, we cannot rule out additional setba...
RALPH ACAMPORA Most surely this is Our sustenance; it shall never come to an end; / This (shall be so); and most su...
QURAN It's not an easy place to play and win. It has to be controlled. The only challenge we could have as...
TOM HIGGINS Mentorship is not just a trend. It is a life process! And when we talk about business mentorship the...
DIMITRIS TIMOTHEATOS He had a harder time helping her out though. He was asleep while she was doing stars. Without wings,...
LAURIE FRANKEL Tomorrow is promised to no one. Prioritize today accordingly.
GINA GREENLEE Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in...
GARY LARSON The place of my birth, and residence for nearly sixteen years, in the early part of my life, became ...
JOHN BRITTON A place is an area within an environment that has been altered in such a way to make the general env...
CARL ANDRE Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.
TOM ROBBINS It is what it is, it is what you make it.
JAMES DURBIN This is their dream so maybe they go one less place or maybe do one less thing they are still going ...
MATT HOWARD What's so fascinating about New Yorkers is that each person has a whole lexicon of personal logi...
SPALDING GRAY By its nature, (an insurance policy) is a complex product - some more complex that others - and this...
ALESSANDRO IUPPA Then that's what the Northern Lights are. All the lives that we're not living.
ADI ALSAID Technological change is never an isolated phenomenon. This revolution takes place inside a complex e...
KLAUS SCHWAB 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 Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and ...
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE As soon as a person gives place to the devil in his life, the devil has this person hooked
SUNDAY ADELAJA Were you there?”
She shook her head. “No. I was here in Nain having a
child.”
�...
FRANCINE RIVERS This is just part of a demand for more rate increases. They are using it as an excuse.
DOUG HELLER You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you cannot put an idea up against the barrack-squa...
SEAN O'CASEY We are very pleased with the progress that has been made at Antigen Express in developing a syntheti...
ANNA GLUSKIN There's something about a place you've been with someone you love. It takes on a meaning in your min...
CASSANDRA CLARE It is not an a ordinance amendment to prevent development, but to allow development to occur and min...
TIM CONKLIN Microsoft has said the decision could hurt the overall economy; it's something that's been followed ...
KEVIN ARQUIT Some people habitually respond to a lover’s pain and confusion with an intense desire to fix somet...
DOSSIE EASTON The reason is that as far as I am concerned, what happened to me is a purely private matter. In anot...
J.M. COETZEE Anti-Semitic? What is anti-Semitic about it? When I say that a uniform should be worn to the right p...
DANIEL BARENBOIM ABSOLUTE, adj. Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does a...
AMBROSE BIERCE The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a...
JEANETTE CORON It is well known that "problem avoidance" is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solvin...
EDWARD DE BONO LL.D. Letters indicating the degree _Legumptionorum Doctor_, one learned in laws, gifted with legal ...
AMBROSE BIERCE I’VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT KIND OF PERSON. HAVING BEEN A PART OF THE HARD CORE PUNK SC...
ANJI BEE It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know the...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The Kellogg Center has been a great partner for us in the past, and this is the same place where the...
LORA HELOU But if you do know what is taught by plants and weather, you are in on the gossip and can feel truly...
GARY SNYDER I'm proud to partner with organizations that place an emphasis on and share my interest in givin...
JASON DAY The struggle is part of your story but Everything will be in place in the right situation at a perfe...
NAPZ CHERUB PELLAZO They say love's like a bus, and if you wait long enough another one will come along, but not in this...
DANIEL HANDLER The unrealistic nature of these tales (which narrowminded rationalists object to) is an important de...
BRUNO BETTELHEIM My phone has become an all-in-one entertainment device and mobile games are an integral part of that...
PARIS HILTON I was one of the early converts. I was using a BlackBerry as I drove. It's a critical part of our in...
GORDON GIFFIN In the hands of the ego, marriage is a prison. It is exclusive. It is a place where people are const...
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON A person is not like a thing that you put down in one place and leave, a person moves, thinks, asks,...
JOSé SARAMAGO (O)n a whole range of issues, there has been a massive popular shift in public opinion toward a prog...
NAFEEZ MOSADDEQ AHMED The universe is so vast, so immense, we can never expect to explore it all. It is in effect, not so ...
CHRISTINA ENGELA Why does anyone stay in an unhappy relationship? Because people do. They do it all the time. And the...
SARAH DUNN An ounce of performance is worth more than a pound of preachment
ELBERT HUBBARD The entertainment industry and my place in it is a place where you burn brightly for as long as you ...
ROBBIE WILLIAMS That's it really; it's all love, whichever way you look at it, it's all love. How much you can Get f...
GEORGE HARRISON It was strange to see someone you have only known alone begin interacting with other people, for tha...
PETER CAMERON This is yet another sad chapter in the history of bad Pentagon weapons systems acquisitions. For yea...
ERIC MILLER It seems that every time we get to an impasse, we (council members) are asked to yet again compromis...
JOE SCHITTER Tie up loose cords, too ? a child pulling on an electrical cord, or tripping on one, could pull an a...
ANNE FRANCHAK Tie up loose cords, too - a child pulling on an electrical cord, or tripping on one, could pull an a...
JAN STEGELMAN

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