Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
Ambrose Bierce
Related
Deliberation. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
AMBROSE BIERCE I know on which side my bread is buttered
PROVERB There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY I cast my bread on the waters long ago. Now it's time for you to send it back to me - toasted an...
JESSE JACKSON No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT I cast my bread on the waters long ago. Now it's time for you to send it back to me - toasted and bu...
JESSE JACKSON The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE We were on the cover of Women's Wear Daily, which was hardly rock 'n' roll, but it pleas...
GARY KEMP Not even a suicide does away with himself out of desperation, he considers the act so long and so de...
SOREN KIERKEGAARD One cannot live on potatoes alone. It is said that one wants bread with potatoes. And when there'...
SHOLOM ALEICHEM The old days were slower. People buttered their bread without guilt and sat down to dinner en famill...
LAURIE COLWIN The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which ...
BIBLE Here is bread, which strengthens man's heart, and therefore is called the staff of Life.
MATTHEW HENRY It's a rock 'n' roll thing to have one-night stands.
RICK SPRINGFIELD I think that instead of feminism being a political thing, it should be an act of creativity. It'...
CAITLIN MORAN Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side, not the white m...
BOB MARLEY After careful deliberation, I voted today to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
JIM GERLACH My career is like an artichoke. People might think that the leaves are tasty and buttered up and del...
KATY PERRY I had never had a piece of toastParticularly long and wide,But fell upon the sanded floor,And always...
JAMES PAYN People say, 'Are you going to be beating up one side or the other side?' It's everybody....
CAMPBELL BROWN Writing and directing might be a red herring, and really I'm just re-examining what it is to act...
DAMIAN LEWIS I lived in San Pedro, California, which is, you know, on the west side of California, and it's w...
YURI KOCHIYAMA A slice of hot, buttered toast is the perfect meal. It's not too much and not too little, and it...
NAVEEN ANDREWS They say there's no second act in American lives. There's something there worth exploring. G...
SCOTT RUDIN It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD One thing a narcissist doesn't like is to look in a mirror that is in any way genuinely reflecti...
JAY PARINI There are two 'faiths' which can uphold humans: faith in God and faith in oneself. And these...
MARIA MONTESSORI One of the things that's been crazy for us has been the speed at which news can break on Digg, b...
KEVIN ROSE Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
CHARLES DE GAULLE Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
CHARLES DE GAULLE Self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow...
GARY RYAN BLAIR A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topogra...
CHARLES LAMB Deliberation is the function of the many; action is the function of one.
CHARLES DE GAULLE I had never had a piece of toast
Particularly long and wide,
But fell upon the sanded floor,...
JAMES PAYN Rock n' roll is very special to me. It's my lifeblood.
JOEY RAMONE It's very weird waking around a corner and being nose to nose with myself on the side of a bus. ...
ALLISON WILLIAMS I never nursed a dear gazelle, / To glad me with its dappled hide, / But when it came to know me wel...
THOMAS HOOD You look how much sugar is in a typical supermarket loaf of bread: it's a lot of sugar. It's...
MICHAEL POLLAN Sides are being divided now. It's very obvious. So if you're on the other side of the fence,...
SAM SHEPARD The privilege of holding the priesthood, which is the power and authority to act in God's name, ...
EZRA TAFT BENSON 'The Devil's Dictionary' reads like a collection of great Twitter posts. And as people d...
VICTOR LAVALLE There's rock n' roll in hip-hop, there's rock n' roll in pop music, there's rock...
JOHN VARVATOS Don't be on the side of the angels, it's too lowering.
D. H. LAWRENCE MILLENNIUM, n. The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers...
AMBROSE BIERCE If you have extraordinary bread and extraordinary butter, it's hard to beat bread and butter.
JACQUES PEPIN What people see on court is another side of me; it's not me.
KOBE BRYANT In the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his ...
WOODROW WILSON It's not opinion polls that determine the outcome of elections, it's votes in ballot boxes.
NICOLA STURGEON It's really fun to act like a bimbo. But it's fun to act like a bimbo only when people know ...
LAURA DERN Any vehicle that conveys great songs and the ability to perform them, whether it's 'N Sync o...
TOMMY MOTTOLA It's a Tim sandwich. The meat is fresh, but the bread is moldy.
DANIEL CRAIG When I die it will be game over,... but I know one life is short, to be selfish is not the best deci...
DEYTH BANGER We are the only beings on the planet who lead such rich internal lives that it's not the events ...
TONY ROBBINS Acting, to me, is about the incredible adventure of examining the landscape of human heart and soul....
GLENN CLOSE For me it's even more interesting, because my character comes out of the shadow. It's a chan...
IAN MCDIARMID Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON God is on everyone's side... and in the last analysis, he is on the side with plenty of money an...
JEAN ANOUILH The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of '...
ROBERT GOTTLIEB Si's beard is really awkward. One side is longer than the other, and it's about three differ...
WILLIE ROBERTSON You release the pain of the past and press on. It's a new day, and God is doing a new thing. He want...
CRAIG GROESCHEL From childhood my mother had me examining Robert Mapplethorpe's style and Egon Schiele's fra...
MILLA JOVOVICH I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of th...
NORMAN MAILER There's an edge to real rock 'n' roll. It's all that matters.
NEIL YOUNG The news media tends to act like the kids on a young soccer team. We all follow the ball as it moves...
STEVE CAPUS Rock n' roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the 'roll' and called it 'rock...
TOM PETTY There's a fine line between stubbornness and the positive side of that, which is dogged determin...
JEB BUSH The charms of the wild rose, new-mown hay, baked bread, buttered popcorn, smell of coffee, frying ba...
LILY CHATTERJEE The true value of somebody in this town is very hard to determine. It's all smoke and mirrors.
MARK RUFFALO The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is
foolish, when they act without delibera...
EDMUND BURKE A cake is a very good test of an oven: if it browns too much on one side and not on the other, it...
DELIA SMITH Before, you only had one Public Enemy and one Rakim and one Salt 'N' Pepa. Now, people have ...
MISSY ELLIOTT We're always on the side of the animal that's being chased. We always seem to be on the side...
NORMAN JEWISON Evolution is unobservable. It's based on blind faith in a few dry bones and on unreliable dating...
RAY COMFORT Rock Band is more like Stairmaster than it is like rock 'n' roll - it's the same steps w...
CARRIE BROWNSTEIN The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle: the roar of ...
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to b...
LEONARD COHEN Humans have a light side and a dark side, and it's up to us to choose which way we're going ...
TARAJI P. HENSON To play is to act out and be willful, exultant and committed, as if one is assured of one's pros...
BRIAN SUTTON-SMITH I'm fascinated by Comte's clear-eyed analysis of what was wrong with modern society, which i...
ALAIN DE BOTTON Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE My whole family is obsessed by brandy butter. And bread sauce. Then, of course, there will be a lot ...
MIRANDA HART 'None of Your Business.' It's the only Salt-N-Pepa song that I regret.
CHERYL JAMES To love is to act.
VICTOR HUGO And that's one thing that helps me is I learn it blandly, vanilla, then I don't try to act i...
JEFF DANIELS Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE I can judge a restaurant by its bread: it winds me up that a lot of places buy pre-packed ones in an...
PAUL HOLLYWOOD To steal a term from one of my Twitter followers, 'Deathlok' is the 'anti-villain.' ...
J. AUGUST RICHARDS The grand jury's job is not to weigh the evidence from both sides; it is only to decide whether ...
DONELLA MEADOWS The Recovery Act is working, but it's going to continue to work. It's not over. A lot's ...
JOE BIDEN I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right; but it is my constant anxiety and prayer th...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill
JUDE WATSON It's a big flash of all these things and whatever you take out of that statement's one state...
ALICE COOPER One of the lessons learned in the Middle East is to never try to anticipate the other side's mov...
EHUD BARAK The reason we're getting bombed is 'cause we were on one side, and we're gonna remain on...
JIMMIE WALKER The enormous success of 2009's 'The Blind Side,' in which Sandra Bullock makes a black t...
WESLEY MORRIS God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.
DESMOND TUTU I'm into the lyrical side of rap. I listen to some old Eminem songs and think, 'Wow, he'...
PHOEBE TONKIN So with truth - there is a certain moment when one can say, this is the truth and here I put a dot, ...
A. B. YEHOSHUA On the fragrance side, I think it's important that it's not overpowering, a fragrance on a m...
DAVID BECKHAM The simple act of telling a woman's story from a woman's point of view is a revolutionary ac...
CAROL P. CHRIST
More Ambrose Bierce
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AMBROSE BIERCE Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
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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.
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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 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 The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
AMBROSE BIERCE