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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.


Ambrose Bierce

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VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE Platypus? I thought it was pronounced platymapus. Has it always been pronounced platypus?
JESSICA SIMPSON ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
AMBROSE BIERCE People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than ...
DAVID SEDARIS FELON, n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed...
AMBROSE BIERCE She was a spendthrift of the spirit, an American in Paris when, as Evelyn Waugh said, the going was ...
ANATOLE BROYARD The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or...
FRED A. ALLEN An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE well over an hour here . . . while the (Republican) leadership variously cajoled, bribed, browbeat, ...
GEORGE WASHINGTON Ted Cruz is not the official spokesman for American conservatism. If you want somebody who has been ...
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER BOUNTY, n. The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he ...
AMBROSE BIERCE The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in...
IDA B. WELLS YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the So...
AMBROSE BIERCE YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Sout...
AMBROSE BIERCE I was a 'runaway girl' from France who married an American and moved to New York City. I'...
LOUISE BOURGEOIS There is only one true aristocracy . . . and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS When I was living in Paris in the '80s, I used to go out with an American model who couldn't...
EDMUND WHITE I pronounced him dead at 12:30 p.m., ... The apparent cause of death is a single gunshot wound to th...
DENNIS RUSSELL The Korean war has always been an unpopular war among the American people.
PAUL ROBESON I've been to Paris France and I've been to Paris Paramount. Paris Paramount is better.
ERNST LUBITSCH REAR, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.
AMBROSE BIERCE Were you there?”
She shook her head. “No. I was here in Nain having a
child.”
�...
FRANCINE RIVERS While it may be true that the UAE has been an ally since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Americ...
BART GORDON Bacon has been a staple of the American diet since the first European settlers, but until recently, ...
DAVID SAX [O]n the day after that happened, the beneficiary was George W. Bush. The Senate, the Congress unite...
LOUIS FARRAKHAN Paris Charles has truly been an asset to this administration, bringing vast knowledge acquired throu...
LAJUANA WILCHER The party needs him and, for all I know, the nation needs him. There hasn't been an African-American...
STEPHEN HESS Burritos have become a staple in the American breakfast diet. Our Made-From-Scratch biscuits continu...
BRAD HALEY When Paris has to pee, Paris has to pee!
PARIS HILTON Nobody or Nowhere? Fern: I'd rather be nobody at home than somebody somewhere else.
Ambrose: I'...
AMY HARMON We're talking about an entire major American metropolitan area that has been completely dislocated, ...
DAVID VITTER I've been to Paris France and I've been to Paris Paramount. Paris Paramount is better.
ERNST LUBITSCH It is better to be a has-been than a never-was.
C. NORTHCOTE PARKINSON What switched me to films was the flood of American pictures into Paris after the Liberation.
FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
AMBROSE BIERCE Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form th...
WYNTON MARSALIS Everybody has been so welcoming here. We have breakfast, lunch and dinner, ... In New Orleans, I pra...
GREGORY JENKINS Even when the poet seems most himself . . . he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that ...
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS The sitcom's traditional role has been to comfort the viewer who feels burdened by the unreality...
LEE SIEGEL When you've walked up the Rue la Paix at Paris, Been to the Louvre and the Tuileries, And to V...
JOHN RUSKIN Charlie Daniels has left an indelible mark on American music ... because of his lifelong pursuit of ...
DEL BRYANT ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
AMBROSE BIERCE A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously ...
SEAMUS HEANEY Hip-hop in Africa has been very often a duplication of an American experience, but in a context that...
K'NAAN Being enrolled in the National Register of Historic Places is an honorific designation. It means the...
MARY HUMSTONE Well, Valek, any new promotions?” the Commander asked
“No. But Maren shows promise. Unfortu...
MARIA V. SNYDER Most people are living lives of sort of survival. And constantly posing an existential crisis, eithe...
BILLY CORGAN An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a perso...
MARK TWAIN I am an American, not an Asian-American. My rejection of hyphenation has been called race treachery,...
BHARATI MUKHERJEE A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The largest untapped constituency in American politics are the 300 million American citizens who hav...
JEFF SESSIONS Playboy is an American icon and I am so excited to have been chosen as one of the models for this fe...
RACHEL PARKS I notice that, in the lecture … which Prof. Lowry gave recently, in Paris … he brought forward c...
HENRY EDWARD ARMSTRONG In Paris, I met a young American person who immediately became the primary inspiration which awakene...
GASTON LACHAISE At five o'clock Paris always has a current of eroticism in the air.
ANAïS NIN GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace hi...
AMBROSE BIERCE The idea that other perspectives exist may not be obvious to those who are in an emotional state of ...
NABIL N. JAMAL Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
AMBROSE BIERCE Rock 'n Roll is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortu...
FRANK SINATRA ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.
AMBROSE BIERCE There's no question that race has always been and will continue to be an important variable in Ameri...
ELIZABETH COHEN CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.... The force from which the su...
HARRY S. TRUMAN I feel pity For people who show proud n attitude to me ....coz they just need an attitude n proud to...
NEYHA SAHU APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has...
AMBROSE BIERCE Silence may be as variously shaded as speech.
EDITH WHARTON Silence may be as variously shaded as speech
EDITH WHARTON The traditional American family has always been the foundation for success in America.
BILL O'REILLY Remember, it's better to be a has-been than a never-was.
TINY TIM Wall Street has been beset with problems. The cycle of greed and personal aggrandizement and lifesty...
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI I've often been impressed with a girl Who could sing for her supper - and breakfast as well
WILLIAM BRAGG SR. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and cocktail parties to boot. The normal American citizen doesn't have that...
CHELLIE PINGREE The American middle class's faith in personal comfort as an end in itself is, in essence, a deni...
NELSON ALGREN Paris is a Roach Motel for top American journalists: They check in, having won the plum foreign post...
WHIT STILLMAN I've always been interested in photographing traditions and customs - especially in America. The...
MARY ELLEN MARK The world is fortunate - for the time being, at least - that it has an American president in Obama w...
MARTIN JACQUES The child who has been taught to make an accurate elevation, plan, and section of a pint pot has had...
THOMAS HUXLEY I am here today as an American citizen and an engineer whose life has been devastated by that (H-1B)...
DAVID HUBER The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
FRANK DANE The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
FRANK DANE The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM There has never been a female director who has won an Oscar. There has only been one woman who won a...
SALMA HAYEK I have to have breakfast, and breakfast has to be eggs, whether in omelet form, hard-boiled, or over...
CHRISTINE TEIGEN Hip hop has reached well beyond its urban roots to diverse national dimensions and has been an integ...
BRENT GLASS The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who chal...
WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS American consumer spending has been the economic driver.
DANIEL RAY OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE He is an American who has spent his professional life battling against government control over one o...
KURT SIMON The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a ...
GEORGE F. KENNAN The best [an American] can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on ...
GEORGE F. KENNAN Beginning under the Roman Empire, intellectual leadership in the West had been provided by Christian...
NANCY PEARCEY American literature has always been immigrant.
SALMAN RUSHDIE He who is satisfied with what he has, is a rich man. -Nabil N. Jamal
NABIL N. JAMAL I remember the youth movement in 1968. It started on American university campuses as a protest again...
HELMUT SCHMIDT I think the greatest curse of American society has been the idea of an easy millennialism -- that so...
ROBERT PENN WARREN There's an enduring American compulsion to be on the side of the angels. Expediency alone has never ...
JONATHAN RABAN Israel has always been pro-American. Israel will always be pro-American.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

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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