CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do _me_?


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

What's the good of it? for whose advantage? [Lat., Cui bono?]
CICERO (MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO)
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY
Whom did it benefit.
(Cui Bono Fuerit)
LONGINUS CASSIUS
What would Bono do?
JIMMY BARNES
No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT
The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE
Stand for something. Make your life mean something. Start where you are with what you have. You are ...
GERMANY KENT
There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they c...
EDMUND BURKE
Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.
~WALT DISNEY
They do not know very good Latin, these botanists.
ALBERT HOFMANN
Sooner or later, what you do will speak
SOTONYE ANGA
Don’t waste your time trying to impress others to satisfy their ego. do what you love & love what ...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA
I Don't Like What I Do, I Love What I Do!
JOHN PETERS
When I know what to do, everything is so easy.
LORRIN L. LEE
Well, Valek, any new promotions?” the Commander asked
“No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortu...
MARIA V. SNYDER
Speed Reader: Nothing more than… "Getting knowledge in a fast way".

(Note: What's that?...
DEYTH BANGER
Now is the time when you see people which you know... but they start ignoring you... and how do you ...
DEYTH BANGER
Being able to do what you wish is the best thing in the world!
SHIRO AMANO
You don't tell an astronaut what to do.
ATMOSPHERE
When I heard him, I thought, if he can do that and get away with it, I can do it too. (on Sonny Bono...
IAN HUNTER
There's no way we could play a country song as well as a country band or a Latin song as well as...
MIKE GORDON
It's never been a problem for Bono .
CARL FORTI
I never thought I was a bad person. I just thought I was the one good person living in a world of ba...
DEAN AMBROSE
We can play now… just do that and that little piece of kinky thoughts… few perverts add and you ...
DEYTH BANGER
He's the Bono of Canada. This sort of work that these guys do, they're not just talking about it all...
MARGO TIMMINS
It doesn’t always feel right when we do what is right.
TERENCE T. GORSKI
It’s in Latin.”
“So? What does it say?”
“I don’t read Latin!”
“You’...
RACHEL CAINE
What you do will project you
SOTONYE ANGA
I liked Latin, I like languages, I liked all the myths, and the Roman tales that we were required to...
SUZANNE FARRELL
It must have been fascinating for Bono to have Johnny Cash do a cover of his song, and hear how he t...
DANIEL ESPINOSA
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

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