Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
Ambrose Bierce
Related
The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope. That is why the p...
NORMAN COUSINS There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - t...
JACK KEVORKIAN No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT When death is imminent and dying patients find their suffering unbearable, then the physician's ...
MARCIA ANGELL 'The Devil's Dictionary' reads like a collection of great Twitter posts. And as people d...
VICTOR LAVALLE Never vote for the best candidate, vote for the one who will do the least harm
FRANK DANE The patient decides when it's best to go.
JACK KEVORKIAN The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life, the ideal of medicine is to eliminate th...
WILLIAM JAMES MAYO The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life, the ideal of medicine is to eliminate th...
WILLIAM J. MAYO I'm just a young person trying to fulfil his potential and be the best he can be at what he want...
TINIE TEMPAH The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease
WILLIAM OSLER The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
WILLIAM OSLER Physician, help yourself: thus help your patient too. Let this be his best help: that he may behold ...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient whose care I am taking over is not by...
ABRAHAM VERGHESE The harm sought to be prevented by the statute is the sexual exploitation of a patient by his or her...
EDWARD FITZGERALD A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed ...
LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA Patience is doing something about the situation and wait for the result of what you did to fix it. B...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE I am like a doctor. I have written a prescription to help the patient. If the patient doesn't want a...
JAVIER PEREZ DE CUELLAR What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES She buys "mixed salad greens" for seven dollars a bag, triple-washed with who knows what. And to get...
RUDOLPH DELSON In the beginning the Universe was created.
This had made many people very angry and has been wi...
DOUGLAS ADAMS A disorderly patient makes the physician cruel.
[Lat., Crudelem medicum intemperans aeger facit.]
SYRUS (PUBLILIUS SYRUS) A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.
WILLIAM OSLER It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill
JUDE WATSON We try to create a situation where we're the casino. It's like how an actuary would set insu...
BILLY BEANE Whatever the situation at hand, that's what I'm dealing with and trying to be true to it in ...
RACHAEL HARRIS I'm a physician. I've been blessed with ideas and resources to use technology to make the wo...
PATRICK SOON-SHIONG The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE It SMELLS ancient," - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON Palm trees were fanned by a warm, light breeze, and they rolled down their windows to smell the sea.
JUDE WATSON What we have done is look at each individual situation and look at the degree of risk the patient wo...
ANTHONY TANG It's a rather rude gesture, but at least it's clear what you mean.
KATHARINE HEPBURN [Doctors and the studys authors suspect that when the Red Sox are in the playoffs, patients who ca...
ALASDAIR CONN The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.
JIM HARRISON [Sister Venus said] every single thing ... I guess not every single thing, but at least on the tenni...
SERENA WILLIAMS The best situation is being a single parent. The best part about is that you get time off, too, beca...
LARRY DAVID The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it
MAIMONIDES You never know what movie I will be in next, but let's just hope it's sells (for my sake at ...
CAMERON DIAZ It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then have we a prescription to die when death i...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I mean, in the course of an evening, people will take a solo here and there, but generally it's ...
CHARLIE HUNTER Arguably Apple's least successful core hardware product in decades, the Apple Watch could have b...
WALT MOSSBERG Or I will get the best or nothing… no need somebody to swallow my material, I'm already a big boy.
DEYTH BANGER I made a gym, it's the best gym in Nicaragua, I have kids that this year July 6th through the 11...
ALEXIS ARGUELLO It's a lot easier to see, at least in some cases, what the long-term limits of the possible will...
K. ERIC DREXLER Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.
HIPPOCRATES Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.
HIPPOCRATES So what I say about Tracy is this: Tracy's big challenge is not having a Parkinson's patient...
MICHAEL J. FOX I guess that's one of the things about growing up in the fifties - it never occurred to me that ...
HUNTER S. THOMPSON I do like books on anatomy. I have to say I'm an amateur physician, I guess.
TOM WAITS I don't know much about politics, but you have to look at it with the bigger picture and think w...
MO FARAH How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine."
The Q...
LEWIS CARROLL That's my prescription for a happy marriage - marry someone who doesn't do anything similar ...
MAXINE KUMIN We don't need a point, son. We're juvenile, we're dirty, we don't have girls, we have noses full of ...
MARKUS ZUSAK My best guess is we will probably take a serious look at it, ... It will be surveyed and discussed a...
GRANT TEAFF A black agenda is jobs, jobs, jobs, quality education, investment in infrastructure and strong democ...
CORNEL WEST You do the best you can with what's thrown at you, then you try again.
MARIO ANDRETTI In Riyadh, there's going to be a huge project that will house at least 12,000 units with inhabit...
AL-WALEED BIN TALAL We'd rather that be left up to the patient and their physician. With this, unfortunately, compromise...
JULIE SALZ GREENSTEIN Stop a minute, Ambrose!" interrupted Master Nathaniel. "I've got a sudden silly whim that we should ...
HOPE MIRRLEES As a former professional patient advocate, I believe prescription drugs are an essential part of hig...
SUE KELLY They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. It's the same way with women... or...
IAN SOMERHALDER To me, as a physician, when 1.78 million of our high school kids have tried an e-cigarette, and a lo...
TOM FRIEDEN Here is my prescription to heal all wounds. Watch the film 'Funny Girl' at least five times,...
BETH DITTO Our party and the Republic's government will go hand in hand with anyone who truly desires the c...
KIM JONG-UN Drummers don't write - or at least, that's what everybody believes.
TONY WILLIAMS The Hippocratic Oath says do no harm. It's the Hypocritical Oath that says do no harm to one'...
MARK MCKINNON When healthcare is at its best, hospitals are four-star hotels, and nurses, personal butlers at the ...
ALEXANDRA ROBBINS If you can do no good, at least do no harm.
KURT VONNEGUT The physician must give heed to the region in which the patient lives, that is to say, to its type a...
PARACELSUS They immediately approached the bedside. They responded quickly and prevented further harm to the pa...
DAN MCFADDEN I will always do what's best for the football team.
BROCK OSWEILER Kompjuter je samom sebi zbrinuto zaćeretao primijetivši da se jedna zračna komora otvorila i zati...
DOUGLAS ADAMS There's a long history of private-company cooperation with the NSA that dates back to at least t...
BARTON GELLMAN If Stephen King was a killer, he will be the best killer ever existed, check out his novels, check o...
DEYTH BANGER LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences u...
AMBROSE BIERCE It was important to us to at least finish with the best record at 7-1,
ALLAN RAY As to diseases, make a habit of two things - to help, or at least, to do no harm.
HIPPOCRATES As to diseases make a habit of two things - to help, or at least, to do no harm.
HIPPOCRATES I always say what's on my mind. No need to second guess with me.
JOY FIELDING It's insane to me to ask anybody to be what they're not. Know what you know the best, love t...
GARY VAYNERCHUK My sense is that the discussion around erectile dysfunction and physicians may be somewhat more enth...
TONY BUTLER At least for the next half a year the situation is likely to remain tough.
TOMOKO FUJII There's something really fun about being scared, and I guess that was at least part of why I wan...
PATRICK CARMAN Hopefully, at some point, people will at least credit the Republicans with carrying out their oversi...
BARBARA OLSON Every single thing she does motivates me. I guess not every single thing, but at least on the tennis...
VENUS WILLIAMS Nurses are required to be patient advocates and do no harm.
DEBORAH BURGER The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; a...
WASHINGTON IRVING The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; a...
WASHINGTON IRVING You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on.
LEON PANETTA Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached, as there is to most things you wan...
MARGARET MITCHELL Expensive medicines are always good: if not for the patient, at least for the druggist
RUSSIAN PROVERB Try at least once what attracts you doesn't matter if its good or bad if it doesn't harm others its ...
SUPERNA BATHEJA Great balls of fire. Don't bother me anymore, and don't call me sugar.
MARGARET MITCHELL In any operation, what you have to do is to persuade the patient to grant access to the patient'...
DAVID MILCH Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That's not a guess, it's a guarantee...
JOHN C. MAXWELL When I left, I had learnt nothing. I took nothing with me. At least, that's what I thought then.
CARMEN LAFORET All day long you sit and sew,
Stitch life down for fear it grow,
Stitch life down fo...
EDITH SITWELL
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 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