FastSaying

APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.


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

There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT As every question has an answer every problem has a solution.
KOWSALAPATHY GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the...
AMBROSE BIERCE An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-pre...
JOSE MARTI PIG, n. An animal (_Porcus omnivorus_) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity...
AMBROSE BIERCE Temperance and labor are the two best virtues. Labor whets the appetite, temperance curbs it.
SOURCE UNKNOWN As is the desire of Providence, so functions one's intellect; one's activities are also controlled b...
CHANAKYA Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance...
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
AMBROSE BIERCE The ability to make a truly artistic photograph is not acquired off-hand, but is the result of an ar...
ALFRED STEIGLITZ Experience is a question of instinct about life.
OSCAR WILDE “The death that will kill a man begins as an appetite.”
ESAN MAGAZINE By Guru's Grace, it is implanted within the mind.
SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have...
JONATHAN SWIFT Die Judenfrage,' it used to be called, even by Jews. 'The Jewish Question.' I find I quite li...
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS The study of truth requires a considerable effort - which is why few are willing to undertake it out...
THOMAS AQUINAS The holocaust is the solution to the Jews final question
ADOLF HITLER Ignoring the question is not the solution of problem,
Same as forgetting the sorrow isn't happi...
SARTHAK TIWARI To our surprise, we found that treatment with it suppresses food intake. It could have potential as ...
AARON HSUEH It's well-recognized that there is a shortage of pharmacists, and the whole system is being taxed. B...
BILL HOLMES All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion,...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON Desires are the pulses of the soul; as physicians judge by the appetite, so may you by desires.
MANTON Providence is demonstrating leadership with its visionary use of wireless technology to improve publ...
GREG BROWN The soul, by an instinct stronger than reason, ever associates beauty with truth.
TUCKERMAN The soul, by an instinct stronger than reason, ever associates beauty with truth.
HENRY TUCKERMAN All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud, you have first an instinct, then an opinio...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON SLANG, n. The grunt of the human hog (_Pignoramus intolerabilis_) with an audible memory. The speech...
AMBROSE BIERCE We overcome anger by disrespecting it as the solution to our problems.
DOMO GESHE Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor m...
ANGELA DAVIS FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat...
AMBROSE BIERCE But in answer to your question about the conspiracy angle, I think that any historian worth his salt...
OLIVER STONE That [criminal] activity that he did was done thoughtfully, cunningly by him.
STEVEN DECKER If by saying that all men are born equal, you mean that they are equally born, it is true, but true ...
EUGENE EDWARDS If by saying that all men are born equal, you mean that they are equally born, it is true, but true ...
EUGENE EDWARDS Well, Valek, any new promotions?” the Commander asked
“No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortu...
MARIA V. SNYDER When people talk about a win-win solution, this is generally what they are talking about. But the qu...
GEORGE CHANDLER Nature makes the locust with an appetite for crops; man would have made him with an appetite for san...
MARK TWAIN The one lesson we can learn from Europe wireless is having one GSM (Global System for Mobile communi...
PAUL CHELLGREN These labor unions are very apprehensive on the question of Europe.
GUY GROUX I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.
NICOLAS CAGE One's selection of solution on plaguing issues is likely to be best and correct when taken or done o...
ANUJ SOMANY To the question how one kind of labor can be measured against another, how the labor of the artisan ...
BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO Pandemic influenza is by nature an international issue; it requires an international solution.
MARGARET CHAN Boxing purists, quite naturally, question Tyson's appetite for victory. Mills Lane should have stopp...
FRED MITCHELL It's inevitable that unless we come up with some kind of labor solution, projects will begin to be d...
BRENDAN BELL The 4 A's of Achievement: Accept the Situation. Anticipate a Solution. Attract the the solution by f...
LORRIN L. LEE I think you always have to go as an artist with instinct, I really do.
CARLA GUGINO As an overruling providence may succeed our wishes, let us rear an offspring in every respect worthy...
DEBORAH SAMPSON Only fools wait, and only tools bait.
CRE There are approximately two trillion cells in the human body. You are never alone, there are always ...
DWIGHT W. HAYES Billy coached as perfect a game as I've ever seen in a national championship game. It reminded me of...
RICK PITINO Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at t...
IGOR STRAVINSKY Trust might be the only solution.
NEIL TIMOTHY P. EDILLON I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.
NICOLAS CAGE A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.
TACITUS Nothing is so envied as genius, nothing so hopeless of attainment by labor alone. Though labor alway...
B. R. HAYDEN This was a big opportunity for the UAW to act like leaders of the labor movement. The only viable so...
GREGG SHOTWELL Women are strange and incomprehensible, a device invented by Providence to keep the wit of man well ...
ARNOLD BENNETT Like a wolf, she lived by instinct.
NIKKI ROWE Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same ...
ALBERT CAMUS I was part of a government that tried to resolve the question of Kosovo by war. Perhaps there is som...
IVICA DACIC The need of expansion is as genuine an instinct in man as the need in a plant for the light, or the ...
MATTHEW ARNOLD This appetite to choose death by pleasure if it is available to choose - this appetite of your peopl...
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE The desire to get married is a basic and primal instinct in women. It's followed by another basic an...
NORA EPHRON In the U.S. the powerful critics of austerity such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich rightly identify...
FRANCES O'GRADY MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhor...
AMBROSE BIERCE MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhors...
AMBROSE BIERCE Evil is an act, not an appetite. How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the...
GREGORY MAGUIRE Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment.
E. M. CIORAN Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment.
EMILE M. CIORAN Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the ...
HENRY GEORGE The public's appetite for famous people is a mouth as big as a mountain.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL There is definitely an appetite to do deals among the brokers in order to diversify their coverage o...
KATRINA PRESTON It was implanted in me that I came from a different class - an elevated class. I was cushioned by se...
SPIKE MILLIGAN REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape pain...
AMBROSE BIERCE Labor Day weekend is not as important from an economic standpoint as it used to be.
LEE SENTELL Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Melancholy: an appetite no misery satisfies.
EMIL M. CIORAN You hear people talking about an appetite for jazz. I am hearing it from the senior population and t...
STANLEY JACKSON Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the ...
LEONARDO DA VINCI There's absolutely no other solution. Other solutions are out of the question. The only solution tha...
AGIM CEKU Seeing eye to an eye is a must, especially when there lies a case, or an intent, to meet; even by in...
PRIYAVRAT THAREJA Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a pecul...
TERENCE MCKENNA Yesterday there was an attempt to make a decision to bring down the Palestinian Authority and in eff...
SHIMON PERES The power to live long is by learning to appreciate & show gratitude to providence for today's life.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) I am Mother Nature. All of creation bows before me. When people leave their cities and learn of me�...
SETH ADAM SMITH To the question of your life you are the answer, and to the problems of your life you are the soluti...
JOE CORDARE A person born with an instinct for poverty.
ELBERT HUBBARD Judges selected Pay By Touch as the winner in this category for bringing an innovative business solu...
DONN ATKINS Cats may have had their goose / Cooked by tobacco-juice; / Still why deny its use / Thoughtfully tak...
C. S. CALVERLEY This is only a piece of the solution, and represents a transparent attempt by both cable operators a...
DENNIS WHARTON Our joint solution with Sun is a trusted end-to-end identity management solution that helps customer...
JASON HART BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.Is public wor...
AMBROSE BIERCE For every question, there is an answer.
Where everybody fails is by asking the wrong question.
RICHARD DIAZ All things require skill, but an appetite.
GEORGE HERBERT In Cloud computing the difference between a dark cloud and a cloud with a silver lining, is the part...
RAJAT MOHAN There's been an attempt to put reporters on the spot and question the motivation of reporters. It is...
DAVID GREGORY Reach out and help others. If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. Be a vessel, be the c...
GERMANY KENT

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