The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
Ambrose Bierce
Related
SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
AMBROSE BIERCE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT high crimes and misdemeanors.
ABBE LOWELL One of the great privileges of being a part of the Senate, it being the greatest deliberative body i...
BILL NELSON There is a real incumbent advantage, because the line between campaigning and Senate duties is very ...
LARRY NOBLE As one of the responsibilities of Vice President, I plan on organizing the Senate. By increasing the...
LEANDRA TORRES You will notice that what we are aiming at when we fall in love is a very strange paradox. The parad...
WOODY ALLEN We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand sc...
WOODY ALLEN I do not believe the framers of the Constitution would have considered this particular situation hig...
PAUL NEWMAN I am neither accusing President Obama of having committed high crimes and misdemeanors nor advocatin...
DAVID LIMBAUGH Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES Administrator McCarthy committed perjury and made several false statements at multiple congressional...
PAUL GOSAR And is the senate finance committee not an authoritative body of the U.S. Congress?
ANNE FOLEY The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE The Old Testament God is a person with body parts and passions. The Church of England God has neithe...
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW Apparently, the hard facts of war need not inconvenience the Senate at this time. And the solemn dut...
ARIZONA REPUBLICAN Something wrong with your child? Feed them and put them to bed. Something wrong with your man? Feed ...
SUSAN CARTWRIGHT If you're hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate. You'll g...
BOB DOLE We don't believe the Senate can sustain a filibuster, ... Any Democrat that wants to vote against th...
DICK ARMEY We are all very pleased with the unanimous vote by the Senate.
RICHARD GETTY I'm really results-oriented. To get results in the Senate, the best way is to reach out to members, ...
MIKE DEWINE [Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, who faces a tough re-election bid, said he is pleased to see the Senate e...
MIKE DEWINE Though my plans at the moment are vague, I can assure you that I'll never run for the Senate in New ...
LAURA BUSH As many members of the Senate as there are, there's that many different views of how you do offsets,...
JUDD GREGG When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, he raises the IQ of both bodies
EVERETT DIRKSEN took to the Senate floor to denounce the president's conduct as immoral and harmful because 'it send...
MONICA LEWINSKY In the bill that was introduced in the Senate, in the bill that I introduced along with some members...
PAT ROBERTS When the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee says that, you know you're going to get it.
JOE LIEBERMAN Grassley is a very good chairman, very fair, and he tries his very best to be bipartisan, ... But th...
JAY ROCKEFELLER He's got one of the best legal minds in the Senate,
SLADE GORTON There are very few times you can go to the Senate floor and save lives, ... We have it within our po...
MIKE DEWINE When a guy gets elected to the Senate or the governor's mansion, he wakes up the next morning and sa...
GERALDINE FERRARO Today, two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy. For the t...
ROBERT EKSTRAND Aemon’s blind white eyes came open. “Egg?” he said, as the rain streamed down his cheeks. “E...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN 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 my conclusion that the human mind and body is essentially a single cell rechargeable battery t...
STEVEN MAGEE It's the most volatile time. It's when somebody is first charged. The emotions are high.
JENNIFER MARLINGA The commission has found significant abuses in the collection of old, charged-off debt.
JOEL WINSTON We are satisfied that this is being settled as a civil matter. Despite a long, thorough and high-pro...
MONA WILLIAMS I thought that the initiative that the Senate produced was very important and very effective,
ALAN GREENSPAN mount a national crusade against the senate elections.
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI Democrats are in open disarray in the Senate. This is not the type of fight you win by coming late t...
JONATHAN TURLEY I think in the end, we'll have a trial, ... We will render a verdict, as the Senate has on 15 other ...
PHIL GRAMM I am proud that the Senate has come together to address the urgent need for comprehensive immigratio...
EDWARD KENNEDY To me, the central issues before the Senate is whether or not the Senate will allow President Bush t...
LINDSEY GRAHAM If you look at Reagan who had two [failed Supreme Court] nominees, who lost control of the Senate an...
KEN MEHLMAN The Senate and the House are at loggerheads, and it would be virtually impossible for the leaders of...
LARRY SABATO It is obvious that members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle really are troubled by the way t...
BARRY FRIEDMAN The bill ended up stalling on the Senate desk after senators closed their session early last week.
RICHARD STAPLER [Proponents -- mostly Democrats -- are threatening to tie up the Senate unless Lott schedules procee...
MITCH MCCONNELL I think I can speak for every Senator, saying that he or she ran for the Senate because we want to h...
MAX BAUCUS The House looks like more fun. It's like the Donahue show. The Senate is like one of those Sunday mo...
PHIL DONAHUE Even a small city like ours will feel a major impact if this (bill) is passed in the Senate.
ROBERT GARCIA There has not been the cooperation that there apparently has been on the Senate side,
JANE HARMAN Are we going to demand that they come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and renounce their faith...
JEFF SESSIONS I think we're knocking on the door of a veto-proof margin in the Senate.
SEAN TIPTON I do not believe that John Roberts has met the burden of proof necessary to be confirmed by the Sena...
EDWARD KENNEDY I left Penney's in 1969 to join the Nixon administration and I didn't come to the Senate until 1992,...
ROBERT F. BENNETT If the Senate fails to act and move forward on those nominees,
SCOTT MCCLELLAN There's about six bills being looked at in the Senate that would change and put a deposit fee on the...
BILL WORREL It's good to have a new face [in the Senate] as opposed to someone who's already been around.
DON STAPLEY You know, I never have been a stagnant kind of individual. I've been in the Senate 22 years. I'm sti...
EDMUND S. MUSKIE [The six-month extension] is the best outcome we could possibly imagine. The Senate stood firm, and ...
EMILY SHEKETOFF If we need a law passed, obviously we need the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass that ...
MICHAEL MOORE My preference is that we eliminate the Senate.
DALTON MCGUINTY The Senate president supports the bill. I think it's going to go.
CINDY DAVIDSMEYER This is one of the worst things the Senate has ever done. On the back of a cocktail napkin they have...
GITA GUTIERREZ It's mostly to emphasize that we're all on the same side, ... The university's faculty-elected repre...
ERIC ROBERTS The next signal has to come from the Senate president. We'll see if the Senate caucus wants to get T...
FRANK DEANER Women's place is in the House - and in the Senate
GLORIA SCHAFFER The difference between the two for me, fundamentally, is that the Senate and the governor want to do...
GEOFFREY SEGAL We're very happy the Senate chose to keep the full text of the amendment as the ballot question. It'...
DYANA MASON Sen. Gregg, like Sen. Byrd, has been working with his colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Commit...
ERIN RATH If the FBI and the Senate can be so easily hacked, what does that say for the nation, in the public ...
JAMES ADAMS A lot of different things go into the mix when determining whether or not Roberts is confirmed. The ...
JAMES MCCANN Judge Roberts deserves overwhelming bi-partisan confirmation by the Senate. Only those willing to ju...
JAN LARUE If you look at it, even with over five years in the Senate to make an impression on Florida voters, ...
JEFF SADOSKY Different majorities in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, as now looks possible, would be the ...
LUIGI SPERANZA If the House can get it done, I think the Senate could, but I'm not optimistic,
JO WHITE If there is no avoiding a trial in the Senate, by stepping aside (Clinton could) spare our nation we...
ROBERT SCHULLER It's now up to the full Senate to move swiftly to confirm John Roberts so he can assume his duti...
JAY ALAN SEKULOW The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS I can confirm that a 28-year-old New Zealand man was today charged by Norfolk Island police with mur...
LARRY ANDREWS Young men today are growing up with Oklahoma, much the same way young men grew up with Florida State...
CHUCK LONG Look to your heart and soul first, rather than looking to your head first, when choosing. Rather tha...
JEFFREY R. ANDERSON What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.
OSCAR WILDE It's a little hard to believe 40-year-old men as high school students.
TIM VAN PATTEN Today, two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy. For the t...
BOB EKSTRAND Impeachment should be reserved for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors where the pres...
GEORGE MASON I do not intend to allow the Senate to rubber-stamp the president's plan to reward the Chinese Commu...
JESSE HELMS His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING Nobody or Nowhere? Fern: I'd rather be nobody at home than somebody somewhere else.
Ambrose: I'...
AMY HARMON To the extent you don't repay, you'll be charged very high rates.
MARTIN NISSENBAUM The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, ...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, ...
LYDIA M. CHILD He is charged with possession of child pornography and nothing else.
DEAN EICHELBERGER It is a coup because while the Brazilian Constitution allows for impeachment, it's necessary for...
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.
E.M. FORSTER
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 Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserte...
AMBROSE BIERCE ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply in...
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance is a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor and obscure, and intima...
AMBROSE BIERCE ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn."Eat ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction o...
AMBROSE BIERCE Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
AMBROSE BIERCE Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoulde...
AMBROSE BIERCE DIPLOMACY, n. Lying in state, or the patriotic art of lying for one's country.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds. Misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
AMBROSE BIERCE Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
AMBROSE BIERCE There are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
AMBROSE BIERCE FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
AMBROSE BIERCE ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Mus...
AMBROSE BIERCE HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was a com...
AMBROSE BIERCE ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A m...
AMBROSE BIERCE YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the So...
AMBROSE BIERCE Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo
AMBROSE BIERCE Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscie...
AMBROSE BIERCE One who is in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was onc...
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
AMBROSE BIERCE Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled wh...
AMBROSE BIERCE When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of...
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
AMBROSE BIERCE ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapaci...
AMBROSE BIERCE LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property s...
AMBROSE BIERCE The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
AMBROSE BIERCE Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.
AMBROSE BIERCE Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
AMBROSE BIERCE Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affai...
AMBROSE BIERCE Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
AMBROSE BIERCE Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
AMBROSE BIERCE Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
AMBROSE BIERCE Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
AMBROSE BIERCE Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth ke...
AMBROSE BIERCE Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the wor...
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
AMBROSE BIERCE Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
AMBROSE BIERCE Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the...
AMBROSE BIERCE Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction ...
AMBROSE BIERCE The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
AMBROSE BIERCE TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeab...
AMBROSE BIERCE Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and wa...
AMBROSE BIERCE The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
AMBROSE BIERCE