PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

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Ambrose Bierce

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Hail to you gods, on that day of the great reckoning. Behold me, I have come to you, without sin, wi...
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported enti...
ULYSSES S. GRANT

Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. Each member of the Lord's body is directly connected and answers only to the Lord Jesus as the Head.
HENRY HON I'll tell you," she says, getting up. "I just need a drink. You want one?"
"Now?" Libby makes ...
REBECCA JAMES On the Palace of Westminster: There is a sense of entitlement that pervades this place like a colour...
CAROLINE LUCAS

I just want silence... nothing less... nothing more.
DEYTH BANGER

You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES

The dead of an army become automatically heroes like the dead of the Church become Martyrs.
GRAHAM GREENE He is a living icon for this congregation, and he has made so many contributions to our church. He d...
CHARLES ROBINSON The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has ...
JOHN C. DANFORTH

The phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ which appears in no founding document (only in a le...
DENNIS PRAGER

Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ough...
JAMES MADISON

It's no accident that the church and the graveyard stand side by side. The city of the dead sleeps e...
DIANE FROLOV AND ANDREW SCHNEIDER

Fuck you and them... I don't like this rules!
DEYTH BANGER What I hate is ignorance, smallness of imagination, the eye that sees no farther than its own lashes...
EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD

She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going t...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

We Are All Infinite
STEPHEN CHBOSKY (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes...
JEAN SASSON

You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY That one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are ALIVE.
STEPHAN CHBOSKY

Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aun...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all beco...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY There's nothing like the deep breathes after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore st...
STHEPHEN CHBOSKY

no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

I don't know the significance of this, but I find it very interesting.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY Poverty is what you see in the eyes of a Black child living in the squatter camp.Matsime Simon Mohap...
MATSIME SIMON MOHAPI When he entered the anteroom, two women looked up at him. One was Miss Robertson, the governor's sec...
GEORGE P. ELLIOTT His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING

I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm bringing the dead back to life...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Jesus did not command us to "develop" leaders. He commanded us to make "disciples". The world "devel...
JOHN PAUL WARREN

PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a hi...
AMBROSE BIERCE All of a sudden, this is a bipedal primate with a difference,
TIM WHITE

I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON

It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON She was infamous once upon a time. She's legendary now. The girl is a definite force to be reckoned ...
REBECCA HARRIS It developed from a basic Judeo-Christian ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressive, and a n...
ROBERT SUSSMAN

He who anticipates his century is generally persecuted when living, and always pilfered when dead.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI

Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of ...
THOMAS FULLER

I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think eve...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY

I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES

PRELATE, n. A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One of Heav...
AMBROSE BIERCE

PRELATE, n. A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One of Heave...
AMBROSE BIERCE A great future starts with what you can see
SOTONYE ANGA

Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficul...
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of...
SAMUEL SMITH DRURY Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play.
J.R. RIM

I wish I was home", She said miserably.
She tried so hard to be brave,
to be fierce as a...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

And what the dead had no speech for, when living, they can tell you, being dead: the communication o...
TS (THOMAS STEARNS) ELIOT

She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead,...
A. N. WILSON

The Church is Christ’s witness to the world of a loving savior and His redemptive plan for man.
JOHN PAUL WARREN

But here is my hope: God willing, when he wills and as he wills, the reform of the reform will take ...
ROBERT SARAH

Mother Superior jump the gun...
-The Beatles, Happiness is a Warm Gun
LAUREN MYRACLE Stop a minute, Ambrose!" interrupted Master Nathaniel. "I've got a sudden silly whim that we should ...
HOPE MIRRLEES [The employees who toured with the Dead will feel the pinch, as well.] There's crew and there's secu...
THE GRATEFUL DEAD Every silver linings got a touch of grey
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will sur...
THE GRATEFUL DEAD

I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C.

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is t...
EDITH STEIN

There are so many priests who enter triumphantly and walk up toward the altar, greeting people left ...
ROBERT SARAH

What the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication<...
T.S. ELIOT Westminster Abbey, the Tower, a steeple, one church, and then another, presented themselves to our v...
KARL PHILIPP MORITZ

The secret of my success is my hairspray.
RICHARD GERE

Love is blind, and a deaf-mute too.
PATRICK ROTHFUSS

He will be loved when dead, who was envied when he was living.
HORACE

When Pat Robertson says there is no constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state, I say...
ARLEN SPECTER

Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must...
RONALD REAGAN

Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and c...
JAMES MADISON For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other y...
JOHN F. KENNEDY They knew that to put God in the constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of ...
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.
RONALD REAGAN It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL RECTOR, n. In the Church of England, the Third Person of the parochial Trinity, the Cruate and the V...
AMBROSE BIERCE Though we are terrorized by death, it's not different from birth, it just happens
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA I was suddenly very aware of the fact it was me standing up in that tunnel with the wind over my fac...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY The only perspective is to really be there.
STEPHEN CHBOSKY I didn't feel like reading that night, so I went downstairs and watched a half-hour long commercial ...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY Why is England manufacturing bigger and better airplanes and bombs and at the same time churning out...
ANNE FRANK Those who so pointlessly and terribly died were...non-replaceable.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY I must say I was disappointed and shocked by that,
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY treasured its place in the Anglican Communion.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY [But a meeting with Bishop Robinson would exasperate conservative evangelicals and primates from the...
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY The road to true racial justice has proved, as we always knew it would, a long and arduous distance ...
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY We give thanks, Your Majesty, for your devotion and your dedication over 50 extraordinary years. And...
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY I sometimes think Thomas Cook should be numbered among the secular saints. He took travel from the p...
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY We all are wearing many hundred glasses of different colors. Therefore, everyone sees the world in d...
MUDITHA CHAMPIKA Each man lives in his own universe and when he dies the world is over
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA SEO is DEAD in the eyes of the people who know LESS about it.
J. ORACOY Feast of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1944 In this age when it seems tacitl...
ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM TEMPLE Feast of Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, 865 The Church is an or...
C. STACEY WOODS The story that the church has been telling for two thousand years is an outrageous tale about a man ...
EMMANUEL KATONGOLE

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

PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

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Ambrose Bierce

PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

Ambrose Bierce

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