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Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later


Ambrose Bierce

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Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, d...
AMBROSE BIERCE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY Saints and mystics, revelations, origin myths, and heroes' journeys, as well as ethical and spiritua...
SANDRA HARNER The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confis...
ALBERT JAY NOCK The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confis...
ALBERT J. NOCK What they teach you as history is mythology, and true mythology is far from fantasy - every kind rev...
SUZY KASSEM No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES To regard the soul and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological origin, is not de...
JOHN BURROUGHS Of the five House Calendars, the Private Calendar is the one to which all Private Bills are referred...
HOWARD COBLE Well, that's history for you, folks. Unfair, untrue and for the most part written by folk who weren'...
JOANNE HARRIS Every muscular contraction contains the history and meaning of its origin.
WILHELM REICH Every great movement in the history of Western civilization from the Carolingian age to the nineteen...
CHRISTOPHER DAWSON True law is not imposed; it arises from unintentional developments. (...)Law emerges (...) as someth...
CARL SCHMITT Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so...
JOHN RUSKIN Swords can’t solve every problem.
RICK RIORDAN This doctrine of Christ and of the apostles, from which the true faith of the primitive church was r...
MARTIN CHEMNITZ We Chinese hold strong sense of history, which in this case serves as a tie connecting the two peopl...
CAI WU Ethnic origin and religious beliefs are not so important criteria for the future premier.
ALU ALKHANOV The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by th...
CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE If it is true that there is an origin of language and if it is true that the origin of language is o...
PAOLO BARTOLONI The contribution of Islam to history and modern civilization is the product of the efforts of people...
ALY KHAN The Constitution of the United States, like all systems of government which are permanent, had its o...
SAMUEL FREEMAN MILLER Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.
JEAN GENET The doctrine of preemption has a long and distinguished history in the history of American foreign p...
JOHN LEWIS GADDIS I can recall no parallel in history where a great nation recently at war has so distinguished its fo...
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; ...
ALFRED ROSENBERG Give us detailed, testable, mechanistic accounts for the origin of life, the origin of the genetic c...
WILLIAM A. DEMBSKI Thing, body, matter, are nothing apart from the combinations of the elements, - the colours, sounds,...
ERNST MACH Always Be Ready For Anything that Comes: Bananas, Chips, College, an Opportunity, so when it does yo...
DANIEL OJEDA Streams of river go in different direction from its origin so does Ideology.
PIYUSH LODHA I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than...
NEIL GAIMAN When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.
GARY SNYDER All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.
THOMAS AQUINAS Being a hero doesn’t mean you’re invincible. It just means that you’re brave enough to stand u...
RICK RIORDAN Institutionalised in sports, the military, acculturated sexuality, the history and mythology of hero...
CHARLES DICKENS Human history is work history. The heroes of the people are work heroes.
MERIDEL LE SUEUR True philosophy invents nothing; it merely establishes and describes what is.
VICTOR COUSIN Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literat...
JAMES CONNOLLY At the end of the warehouse was a dais constructed from pallets of books: stack of vampire novels, w...
RICK RIORDAN Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, writt...
DAVID HUME Eros (or call it lust if you will), is like a beautiful, magnificent Afghan Hound! A pure white Afgh...
C. JOYBELL C. Percy was getting tired of water.
If he said that aloud, he would probably get kicked out of Po...
RICK RIORDAN The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE Similarly, thought is a system. That system not only includes thought and feelings, but it includes ...
DAVID BOHM I live next to the quarry which I remember from its later stages of life as just a large water-fille...
ALAN ROSS Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: Prayer opens the understanding to the brightness of Divine L...
FRANÇOIS DE SALES Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The multitude which is not brought to act as a unity, is confusion. That unity which has not its ori...
BLAISE PASCAL Man is a breathing DUST, while woman is a breathing BONE
SOTONYE ANGA There is not any thing, which has contributed so much to delude mankind in religious matters, as mis...
ETHAN ALLEN The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires a...
SAM HARRIS People tend to look on the beliefs of the past as being primitive and unintelligent, yet we are seei...
JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. “We have trained all the famous mer-heroes! Name a fa...
RICK RIORDAN Frank held up the Chinese handcuffs. “Keep it simple.
RICK RIORDAN Just like your body and lifestyle can be healthy or unhealthy, the same is true with your beliefs. Y...
STEVE MARABOLI Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. KAHLIL GIBRAN Yay!” Tyson went around the couches and gave everyone a big hug—even Octavian, who didn't look t...
RICK RIORDAN Hazel!” he yelled. “That box! Open it!”
She hesitated, then saw the box he meant. Te labe...
RICK RIORDAN If not for the horses, Piper would've died.
RICK RIORDAN Pluto's pauldrons,” Reyna cursed.
RICK RIORDAN Then I realized my early work did have something special that audiences adored apart from what I hum...
DARIO ARGENTO Whenever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed. The livi...
JOSEPH CAMPBELL We still should have enough time to reach Rome.”
Hazel scowled. “When you say should hav...
RICK RIORDAN This is Buford,” Leo announced.
“You name your furniture?” Frank asked.
RICK RIORDAN He’d learned years ago it was better not to dwell too much on who was related to whom on the godly...
RICK RIORDAN Did someone just call me the wine dude?” he asked in a lazy drawl. “It’s Bacchus, pleas...
RICK RIORDAN Reyna looked at Percy without much hope. “You do have a plan?”
Percy wanted to step ...
RICK RIORDAN Percy blinked. “So your brother is a winged horse. But you’re also my half brother, which means ...
RICK RIORDAN I can’t believe how much this place has grown,” Hazel muttered.
The taxi driver grinned in...
RICK RIORDAN It is not history, theology or mythology that interest me. It is the fact that history, theology or ...
ASHWIN SANGHI The most common trait of all primitive peoples is a reverence for the life-giving earth, and the Nat...
STEWART L. UDALL The most common trait of all primitive peoples is a reverence for the life-giving earth, and the Nat...
STEWART UDALL Pain has creative power,
Let the magic unfold...
HENNA SOHAIL Maybe it’s the other way around,” Jason suggested. “Maybe people with special gifts show up wh...
RICK RIORDAN Every time we revise our history, we also revise the mythology of our history.
LAURA ANNE GILMAN Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient ...
LEO TOLSTOY What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do wi...
ARTHUR ERICKSON So, a crash course for the amnesiac,” Leo said, in a helpful tone that made Jason think this was n...
RICK RIORDAN I am sure my fellow-scientists will agree with me if I say that whatever we were able to achieve in ...
FELIX BLOCH Cupid," Jason called, "where are you?"
'Where you least expect me,' Cupid answered. 'As love al...
RICK RIORDAN You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES A lion, for instance, which in nature is not a very distinctive object, was portrayed, for greater d...
SIR GEORGE BELLEW By what criteria can one decide which of a person's countless beliefs are primitive? The essential f...
MILTON ROKEACH The thought manifests the word;
The word manifests the deed;
The deed develops into habit;...
JUAN MASCARó Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollecte...
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollect...
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollecte...
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH A triptych in which the presiding deities are Mother, England and Me.
PETER ACKROYD Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane wr...
AMBROSE BIERCE The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
WOODROW WILSON The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.
EDWIN POWELL HUBBLE The history of mankind is a history of war.
MIKE LOVE History has been the history of warfare.
GODFREY REGGIO Who is the first farmer? The good book says: God planted a garden. So God is the first, then Adam, a...
SOTONYE ANGA Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 Both from the confession of the evil...
ST. ATHANASIUS When the [Supreme] Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably ...
ROBERT H. JACKSON Reputation is favorable notoriety as distinguished from fame, which is permanent approval of great d...
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS The soul is subject to health and disease, just as is the body. The health and disease of both . . ....
MAIMONIDES The system of revealed truth which this Book contains is like that of the universe, concealed from c...
ISAAC NEWTON

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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