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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.


Ambrose Bierce

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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 I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone... I'm just saying that I'm one-of-a-kind.
C LIONG The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people you...
FREDRIK BACKMAN Closed eyes, heart not beating, but a living love.
AVIS COREA Ignorance breeds fear and hatred.
KRISTIN CAST There have been thousands of dollars wasted in blueprints and plans because some neophyte developer ...
TIM CARTER You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently.
Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war m...
SARAH J. MAAS The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison
SARAH J. MAAS I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you.
SARAH J. MAAS He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain...
SARAH J. MAAS Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Hodor," said Hodor.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You do what you love, what you need
SARAH J. MAAS I turned.
Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere...
SARAH J. MAAS Like a deep sad note
played beneath the ocean
waving through the orb
the memories of ...
PAWAN MISHRA Death is tough for the people left behind on earth.
PRATEEKSHA MALIK People in the real world always say, when something terrible happens, that the sadness and loss and ...
FREDRIK BACKMAN When his wife was at his side, she was also in front of him, marking out the horizon of his life. No...
MILAN KUNDERA Your life will be no better than the plans you make and the action you take. You are the architect a...
ALFRED MONTAPERT Your life will be no better than the plans you make and the action you take. You are the architect a...
ALFRED A. MONTAPERT Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you.
ALLY CARTER The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the...
RAY BRADBURY The inscription on his gravestone had felt so wholly insufficient the moment she saw it. Just a name...
STUART NADLER We're beyond drafts now. There were three of four real drafts, and there were considerable changes f...
JOE LOCKHART It helps if you have a string of five or six or seven good drafts to develop a team. It helps when y...
JON GRUDEN That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Kn...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Here's the truth. Your teens and twenties are your Plan A. At 50, you're assessing whether P...
DICK VAN DYKE She made a fence of phrases, which seemed a treachery to herself.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR You are the blood of the dragon. You can make a hat.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three red-headed men were grouped on th...
J.K. ROWLING Whoever said that loss gets easier with time was a liar. Here's what really happens: The spaces betw...
KRISTIN O'DONNELL TUBB He Is Not Dead

I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away. JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY From the day after we lose someone, how we lost them doesn't matter. All that matters now is that th...
CHAD PELLEY When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.
MADELINE MILLER I’d give in to the grief but make sure I wasn’t loud enough to draw attention from those who thi...
ADAM SILVERA It hurts when they're gone. And it doesn't matter if it's slow or fast, whether it's a long drawn-ou...
WALTER MOSLEY But surely Uncle Akbar could not be dead as they were dead? There must be something indestructible �...
M.M. KAYE We die a day at a time
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA A person of value have skill, a vision & a deep desire to achieve what they dream for. Happiness com...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA A man of guilt acknowledges and changes himself immediately on being hinted slightly about his fault...
ANUJ SOMANY The school year progressed slowly. I felt as if I had been in the sixth grade for years, yet it was ...
LUCY GREALY The value of a consultant;An outsider can see what an insider cannot see or has decided to ignore.
DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) A family is like a card game, on one hand, you can get a really bad hand and on the other, your hand...
GARY F EVANS... The worth of a person’s quote is in his or her heart where it takes the birth and the value of the...
ANUJ SOMANY Walking the rugged trail of the unknown destiny can be filled with walls crashing and cracks on the ...
GARY F EVANS... It makes you wonder why the human race can be so selfish and self-centered sometimes, when on cold w...
GARY F EVANS... To have a pet in the family is to invite good health into your lives.It brings happiness to all and ...
GARY F EVANS... I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape an...
ARTHUR GOLDEN كنت أصمت أذعن لمصيري. أحمل دميتي,أنزع ملابسها, أشد شعره�...
مليكة مستظرف The norm which the society at large has set today categorically is in the form of preventive measure...
HENRIETTA NEWTON MARTIN LEGAL CONSULTANT History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I want to share this bed with you, though," I breathed. "I want you to hold me."
Stars flicker...
SARAH J. MAAS She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day.
MITCH ALBOM Each man lives in his own universe and when he dies the world is over
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA Women are designed to help men and men are designed to love and honor them
SOTONYE ANGA Kehidupan perempuan itu sembilan bagian kacau dan satu bagian ajaib, kau akan segera mengetahuinya.....
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Jaime smiled knowingly. Men will read all sorts of things into a knowing smile if you let them.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.
I was a survivor, and I was strong.
I would no...
SARAH J. MAAS I sipped from my wine. "And if he had grabbed me?"

There was nothing but uncompromising w...
SARAH J. MAAS There you are. I've been looking for you.

His first words to me— not a lie at a...
SARAH J. MAAS I was not prey any longer, I decided as I eased up to that door.
And I was not a mouse.
I ...
SARAH J. MAAS No one was my master— but I might be master of everything, if I wished. If I dared.
SARAH J. MAAS He drained his glass. "I made a mistake."
"It's not the end of the world if you do that every n...
SARAH J. MAAS I will kill anyone who harms you," Rhys snarled. "I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing ...
SARAH J. MAAS Julia poured tea gracefully, but it all ran over into the saucers.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR The next day, the villages came closer together until the beginnings and endings could no longer be ...
PATRICK W. CARR It appeared to Harriet that she was always the one who remembered having seen other people. They nev...
ELIZABETH TAYLOR Would you like me to grovel with gratitude for bringing me here, High Lord?"
"Ah. The Suriel to...
SARAH J. MAAS Though we are terrorized by death, it's not different from birth, it just happens
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA How do you go on knowing that you will never again - not ever, ever - see the person you have loved?...
HOWARD JACOBSON When a child dies, a parent loses a part of themselves,” he said. “Your whole world ceases to ex...
NICOLE WILLIAMS I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it w...
JOHN SCALZI The shape does not change. There was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or a...
NEIL GAIMAN The sun still, surprisingly, came up and shone down onto the cold, metal leftovers. No loud noises. ...
PLEASEFINDTHIS the deceased don’t want you to forget about them. They just want you to move past it; not to dwell...
JUSTIN PYFROM Dead mothers are rather fashionable these days. They lend such an attractive air of tragedy.
HEIDI SCHULZ The steel door of the incinerator went up and the muted hum of the eternal fire became a red roaring...
ARUNDHATI ROY What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?
JESS WALTER ...nobody was ever really ready to turn off their mother's machine, no matter what they thought; to ...
FANNIE FLAGG Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still wa...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You know nothing, Jon Snow.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN As I’ve said, encountering death has a way of jerking your priorities into line.
JAMES C. DOBSON This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour critical water upon the simmering coals. Time en...
RAY BRADBURY Having plans sounds like a good idea - until you have to put on clothes and leave your house.
JILL SHALVIS You are the architect of your life.
LAILAH GIFTY AKITA it's okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.
STEPHEN CHOBOSKY All concepts of making a point is another failure of communication.
DEYTH BANGER I just want silence... nothing less... nothing more.
DEYTH BANGER Knowledge causes depression and a lot of pressure.
DEYTH BANGER This is going to take a while. I'm a fantasy author. We have trouble with the concept of brevity.
BRANDON SANDERSON Be yourself and people will like you.
JEFF KINNEY The best person I know is Myself.
JEFF KINNEY If you play football, then for every goal that you score, ask your self, what is the 'grudge of a li...
APURVA GAGLANI I don’t want to start thinking again. Not like I have this last week. I can’t think again. Not e...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY It's strange to describe reading a book as a really great experience, but that's kind of how it felt...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I’m caught between trying to live my life, and trying to run from it.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I don't want to be somebody's crush.if somebody likes me, i want them to like the real me, not what ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES

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 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