You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
Ambrose Bierce
Related
People live for eating,but
I eat for survive
OM BENIWAL To be, or not to be, that is the question.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung...
PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don't be.
GOLDA MEIR To be or not to be. That's not really a question.
JEAN-LUC GODARD To be rich simply means,to be able to meet people's need.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) when your heart touched mine,I knew then we were one.
THERESA M WILSON To be rich simply means to be beneficial to others.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) More than any woman I ever knew, she comforted.' -Mrs. Huxley about Emma
DEBORAH HEILIGMAN That's silly,' said Martha. 'Friends should always tell each other the truth.
JAMES MARSHALL Kindness is the essence of greatness and the fundamental characteristic of the noblest men and women...
JOSEPH B. WIRTHLIN In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be “perfect” men and women ...
JEFFREY R. HOLLAND And we learned that you don't have to be famous or rich or physically healthy to be a leader. You ju...
JOAN BAUER There is no tomorrow to remember if we don’t do something today, and to live most fully today, we ...
THOMAS S. MONSON Beauty—real everlasting beauty—lives not on our faces, but in our attitude and our actions. It l...
JUSTINA CHEN You know that we've got a few problems we need to talk through before we get married."
"I...
SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS Be who you want to be not what others think you should be.
BILAL SAIF Do I have the courage of being a ruthless man to myself with the complete knowledge on my manner or ...
FEREIDOON YAZDI Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo...
GERMANY KENT if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI I have spend a lot of time on everything and what's impresses me about people I have written that in...
DEYTH BANGER The sad heart needs work to do.
JOAN BAUER Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful than even _...
GEORGE MACDONALD Reach out and help others. If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. Be a vessel, be the c...
GERMANY KENT To be mad is worse than not to be if this is what it is.
JOHNNY RICH Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy
"To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to re...
HENRY N. BEARD Meant to be" allows for lazy. The idea of destiny alleviates anxiety; it comforts us. We stop believ...
STEPHANIE KLEIN To be or not to be isn't the question. The question is how to prolong being.
TOM ROBBINS When you give, you will be blessed. When you give, it will be given back to you.
CRAIG GROESCHEL How to be wealthy;Birth an idea & then take it to the market place & believe that the market place w...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) It's a sheer and an utter nonsense to even think or imagine that a person can gain and retain people...
ANUJ SOMANY How to be perfect;Think nothing,say nothing & do nothing.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) How to be Great;The moment you realize & accept the ordinary fact that those doing great things toda...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) How to be great;Think of a gigantic & unheard of idea to birth & nurture & inside it lies your great...
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) Stay true to yourself.Take everyday challenge in your stride & strive to make journey of life exactl...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Be true to yourself.Give wings of confidence & courage to your endeavour. Your strength is reflected...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Like the vital rudder of a ship, we have been provided a way to determine the direction we travel. T...
THOMAS S. MONSON Be true to yourself.Let your belief & thoughts for right cause are not compromised at any cost thoug...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Just because you love someone doesn't mean you're meant to be together.
MICHAELA D. If you can put your mind to it anything can be achieved but to pull something out of nothing althoug...
GARY F EVANS... There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the p...
EPICTETUS We must be more and more to each other, my dear wife.' -Charles Darwin to wife Emma upon loss of dau...
DEBORAH HEILIGMAN I wish you knew how I value you; and what an inexpressible blessing it is to have one whom one can a...
DEBORAH HEILIGMAN Not everyone has the time to be normal.
LJUPKA CVETANOVA No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT Remember that yours is not the only heart that may be wishing for love.
CAMERON DOKEY We are far from perfect but willing to be different.
CRAIG GROESCHEL Do you love me as the person that I am now, or do you love me as the person I used to be?
ANTHONY T. HINCKS When there is no reason to be happy, that's all the reason you need to happy
SOTONYE ANGA Be kind. We never know what people are going through. Give grace and mercy because one day your circ...
GERMANY KENT How to be a Poet (to remind myself)
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet. <...
WENDELL BERRY Sheep don’t need the shepherd to be what they are. The shepherd needs sheep to be what he is.
LJUPKA CVETANOVA Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say...
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY Each of us is under a divinely spoken obligation to reach out with pardon and mercy and to forgive o...
DIETER F. UCHTDORF I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my lif...
JANE AUSTEN Human is what he decides to be.
ZAMAN ALI Because I want to be remembered.
SHERMAN ALEXIE A proverb in the Old Testament states: 'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he t...
GORDON B. HINCKLEY Our opportunities to give of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable. There are...
THOMAS S. MONSON So this is going to be drill!?
DEYTH BANGER Is," "is," "is"—the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin ...
ROBERT ANTON WILSON The Lord gives us a spirit of hope and a feeling of comfort and confidence that we can overcome the ...
L. LIONEL KENDRICK The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time...
DOUGLAS WOOD What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not...
ELEANOR H. PORTER If you can BE your way through it, you can find your way to it.
SUZETTE VEARNON People know your tragedies and they treat you like
you’re not human. Like you’re a three-h...
ERIC JEROME DICKEY There's nothing stupid about wanting to be loved. Believe me.
NINA LACOUR Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then ...
JOSEPH SMITH JR. Many people have asked me, 'How do you make a single life a happy one? My answer is, 'Create the bes...
KRISTEN MCMAIN OAKS As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have a responsibility to make our m...
KRISTEN MCMAIN OAKS If you want to be happy or if you want to be miserable—either way is your choice. So choose to be ...
DEBASISH MRIDHA Many people may be heartbroken, but not enough to take action.
CRAIG GROESCHEL Be nice to people... maybe it'll be unappreciated, unreciprocated, or ignored, but spread the love a...
GERMANY KENT I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who ...
NEIL GAIMAN If you are feeling constrained by a group that you belong to, ask yourself,
“How can I partic...
GINA GREENLEE For me, happiness is waking up excited even though you have no particular place to go…..
CHERYL RUSHTON You can BE, DO, and HAVE ...absolutely ANYTHING you really, really want to BE, DO, and HAVE.
LORRIN L. LEE stop looking for job, create one.
SOTONYE ANGA Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging have the courage to be imperfect.
BRENé BROWN The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surpr...
C.S. LEWIS Don't lie to yourself?
SONYA.E.WILLIAMS As you see you can't change what has happen in past if I could I do my best to don't happen in other...
DEYTH BANGER To date or not to date that is the question. It's almost as important as Shakespeare's to be...
AL GOLDSTEIN It is good to be a Christian and you know it, but it is better to be a Christian and show it!
UNKNOWN I've got to be honest, there's no pleasure when you're working.
DANA PLATO This is your moment. You're meant to be here.
HERB BROOKS If you were to ask everyone what 'Hamlet' was about, they might say, "It's about a ...
ORLANDO BLOOM I have to be honest - I don't love guns.
VANESSA FERLITO The game is meant to be fun.
JACK NICKLAUS You must remember that you are my prime treasure (and always have been).'
Emma Darwin to husban...
DEBORAH HEILIGMAN It is almost impossible for anyone, even the most ineffective among us, to continue to choose misery...
WILLIAM GLASSER It is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to ...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON Ah, much deluded! lay aside
Thy threats, and anger misapplied!
Art not afraid with sounds ...
JOHN MILTON I know now: what is is all that matters. Not the thing you know is meant to be, not what could be, n...
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS I judge the world by my own lights
and I come by my own hand.
CATHERINE MADSEN Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another ...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON GoodReads is fabulous fun, so interesting, so useful ... and the best reviewers are so loving and il...
WILLIAM DONELSON The gamecock proudly stepped into the slaughterhouse.
TOBA BETA If you don’t have a goal and don’t know where you want to be and when you want be there. You are...
AHMED ALI ANJUM
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 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 The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
AMBROSE BIERCE