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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.


Ambrose Bierce

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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by frie...
AMBROSE GWINETT BIERCE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY Want LESS! Need LESS! Live MORE!
TANYA MASSE I had rather be plundered by my enemies than by my friends.
HENRY IV No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT Maxim 29:
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.

-The Seventy...
HOWARD TAYLER Vain ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and dead things
To leave a living name behind, <...
JOHN WEBSTER To be deceived by our enemies or betrayed by our friends in insupportable; yet by ourselves we are o...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. F...
WILLIAM CONGREVE Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attr...
THOMAS SZASZ Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. F...
WILLIAMS CHILDS Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usuall...
THOMAS SZASZ We can change people only by becoming their friends, not by becoming their enemies! Make friends wit...
MEHMET MURAT ILDAN Intense, sustained focus fuels manifestation.
T.F. HODGE If her enemies were Brigan's friends and her friends were Brigan's enemies, then the two of them cou...
KRISTIN CASHORE We make more enemies by what we say than friends by what we do
JOHN C. COLLINS It doesn't hurt my feeling when I get vilified by fundamentalist religious people. I've actu...
RICHARD DAWKINS Not all things have to be scrutinized, nor all friends tested, not all enemies exposed and denounced
SPANISH PROVERB Friends are inspirational while enemies are motivation
MARK LAMBERT The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, m...
KATHARINE HEPBURN We are the books we read and the things we love.
CATH CROWLEY You should give up sarcasm. People could get the wrong idea about you.
MICHAEL PRYOR I know exactly who I am, what I'm about and who I will become.
EMMA PAUL It is better to grope in the dark and wade through a million errors to reach the Truth than to entru...
SUDHIR KAKAR If you argue with a fool, you become a fool.
L.A. HILDEN Everyday is another chance to do something great.
EMMA PAUL You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm!
COLETTE there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely ...
OSCAR WILDE I think you can tell when you meet someone whether they read novels. There's some hollowness if they...
PHILIP HENSHER Always be true to your friends, just as you are to yourself.
MEG CABOT I have this feeling, like I'm waiting for something. But I have no idea what.
JENNIFER NIVEN 2.5.03.02.005: Generally speaking, if you fiddle with something, it will break. Don't.
JASPER FFORDE As TIME passes by many PEOPLE will turn out to be your ENEMIES! But its on YOU whether to make them ...
VIPIN ONGALATHE He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
OSCAR WILDE If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italia...
KATHARINE HEPBURN Be the girl you want your daughter to be. Be the girl you want your son to date. Be classy, be smart...
GERMANY KENT Today's enemies can be your friends tomorrow. And today's friends can be tomorrow's enemies.
SUZY KASSEM Each of us has... all the time there is. Those years, weeks, hours, are the sands in the glass runni...
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT ―We could be dead- said Eli.
―That‘s a risk everyone takes by living.
VICTORIA SCHWAB Truth is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they believe it."

The logic in th...
SARAH MACLEAN Balzac's ambition was to be omnipotent. He would be Michelangelesque, and that by sheer force of...
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT Friends are made by many acts and lost by only one
PROVERB Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.
SCOTTISH PROVERB Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.
BALTASAR GRACIAN Old enemies must be friends when a greater evil looms.
RAYMOND E. FEIST Maxim 1:
Pillage, then burn.

-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Merc...
HOWARD TAYLER Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would, as long as life was mortal. In every meeting there ...
CASSANDRA CLARE A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life:

1. Never put off to tomorrow wha...
THOMAS JEFFERSON You love another person not because of his virtues- that is infatuation- but in spite of his faults,...
SUDHIR KAKAR The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experi...
LIBBA BRAY Stop a minute, Ambrose!" interrupted Master Nathaniel. "I've got a sudden silly whim that we should ...
HOPE MIRRLEES I have the desire to work as an actress, but I have no ambition to be a star.
ALLY SHEEDY PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. ...
AMBROSE BIERCE One day, I will become famous, while I may be dead by then, I will be famous.
MICHAEL ELLENBOGEN You know, maybe we don't need enemies."
"Yeah, best friends aree about all I can take.
BILL WATTERSON One of a parent’s most important tasks is teaching their children how to communicate effectively a...
BY FAMOUS Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day.
BY ALEFLETCHER Enemies disguise as friends and friends as enemies.
SOMAN CHAINANI Shareholders lose when companies choose to settle investigations motivated by political ambition, fu...
HOWARD OPINSKY I'd rather die while I'm living then live while I'm dead.
JIMMY BUFFETT I'd rather die while I'm living then live while I'm dead.
JIMMY BUFFET I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.
JIMMY BUFFETT And we stand for the living, and we stand for the dead,And we looked out to see your enemies,And we ...
DAR WILLIAMS I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And...
VOLTAIRE I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And...
VOLTAIRE No man made great by death offers more hope to lowly pride than does Abraham Lincoln; for while livi...
THOMAS VERNOR SMITH If I were in his situation, I think I'd want to run some of my ideas by some friends, and even enemi...
JOE BARNHART A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.
VICTOR HUGO A study can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.
VICTOR HUGO Your worst enemies are made when you ignore people. Those boys in America who shot dead classmates r...
TORI AMOS We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must n...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.
JAMES A. BALDWIN It's unfortunate to be bitten by political ambition. The deadly disease causes a man to want to acce...
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA just ridiculous to make that assertion. It's very clear that every initiative made in these negotiat...
GARY BETTMAN All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that ...
JAMES MADISON Encumbered forever by desire and ambition, There's a hunger still unsatisfied, Our weary eyes still ...
PINK FLOYD The enemies you make by taking a decided stand generally have more respect for you than the friends ...
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.&#...
VOLTAIRE Maxim 2:
A sergeant in motion outranks a lieutenant who doesn't know what's going on.
HOWARD TAYLER Honor from death,” I snap, “is a myth. Invented by the war torn to make sense of the horrific. I...
RAE CARSON Webster lapsed into silence. Started thinking hard. He was a smart enough bureaucrat to know if you ...
LEE CHILD Humor and joy contribute to my total well-being.
LOUISE L. HAY Life IS the gift you were given,
So stop waiting around for your dues.
Use it wisely and y...
MICHELLE GEANEY To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.
STIRLING MOSS It is better to decide a difference between enemies than friends, for one of our friends will certa...
PIERRE JEAN DE BERANGER It is better to decide a difference between enemies than friends, for one of our friends will certai...
BIAS OF PRIENE Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: viz., avarice, ambition, envy, anger and pride. If thos...
PETRARCH Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether pec...
ADAM SMITH By living exclusively for the present, we let ourselves be hemmed in by an ocean of death. Conversel...
AMIN MAALOUF By the time we've made it, we've had it.
MALCOLM FORBES Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, t...
LORD CHESTERFIELD The best way to destroy your enemies is to make them adopt your worldview
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA If you have a burning ambition and desire, absolutely anything can be achieved.
JAHANGIR KHAN Drugs are the enemies of ambition and hope - and when we fight against drugs we are fighting for the...
BOB RILEY Ambition is not in itself an evil; nor is he to be condemned whose spirit prompts him to seek fame b...
FRANCESCO GUICCIARDINI When you're playing an action game, by the time you say 'look out' to someone, they're already dead ...
GARY WHITTA The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned ...
ROGER EBERT Golf is an open exhibition of overweening ambition, courage deflated by stupidity, skill soured by a...
ALISTAIR COOKE

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 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