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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMYANK.)


Ambrose Bierce

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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Sout...
AMBROSE BIERCE But the Constitution was made not only for southern and northern states, but for states neither nort...
WILLIAM H. SEWARD She was intimidating and all I could do was sit back on the couch as she paced back and forth, slowl...
IN THE MAKING By the terms of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June of last year legalizing the practice of dest...
STEVEN A. COULTER Medicine is becoming a business, and if people choose medicine as a way to make money, they should g...
TILDA SHALOF In October, we start nationwide — in eight states on the northern border and four on the southern.
CONNIE HAIR In October, we start nationwide — in eight states on the northern border and four on the southern.
CONNIE HAIR Peace in Europe can only come through union in one economic system. The United States of Europe are ...
HENRY WILLIAMSON I believe that for the past twenty years there has been a creeping socialism spreading in the United...
DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER I never use the word "nation" in speaking of the United States. I always use the word "Union" or "...
JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN He called out to his fellow monks,'Come quickly I am tasting stars.
JOHN GREEN I've told you I don't live and die by the polls. Thus, I will refrain from pointing out that we're n...
, IN THE NEW REPUBLIC What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is s...
JOHN GREEN Pero diré esto: Cuando los científicos del futuro aparezcan en mi casa con ojos robot y me digan q...
JOHN GREEN Wow,” I said. “Are you making this up?”
“Hazel Grace, could I, with my meager intellect...
JOHN GREEN Finally, I decided that the proper strategy was to stare back. Boys do not have a monopoly on the St...
JOHN GREEN We were sitting there on the couch together, and he pushed himself up to go but then fell back down ...
JOHN GREEN So it’s your death suit.”
“Correct. Don’t you have a death outfit?”
“Yeah,”...
JOHN GREEN I spent your Wish on that doucheface,” I said into his chest.
“Hazel Grace. No. I will gran...
JOHN GREEN «Hazel Grace,” he said, my name new and better in his voice. “It has been a real pleasure to ma...
JOHN GREEN Cold,” he said, pressing a finger to my pale wrist.
“Not cold so much as underoxygenated,�...
JOHN GREEN If he is anything other than a total gentleman, I’m going to gouge his eyes out.”
“So you...
JOHN GREEN People always get used to beauty, though.”
“I haven’t gotten used to you just yet,” he ...
JOHN GREEN Augustus: “You probably need some rest.”
Me: “I’m okay.”
Augustus: “Okay.” (...
JOHN GREEN Time's a slut, she screws with everyone.
JOHN GREEN como toda pregunta sobre el universo, esta vía de investigación nos obliga inevitablemente a pregu...
J.K. ROWLING No puedes escoger si serás lastimado en este mundo, pero si puedes decidir quién te lastima
JOHN GREEN But it's your life.
JOHN GREEN No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way round.
JOHN GREEN Cancer kids are essentially side effects of the relentless mutation that made the diversity of life ...
JOHN GREEN No puedes elegir si van hacerte daño en este mundo, pero sí eliges quién te lo hace.
JOHN GREEN you clench your teeth,you look up, you tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them,and...
JOHN GREEN That's the think about pain. It demands to be felt.
JOHN GREEN Seriously, don't even get me started on my hot bod. You don't want to see me naked, Dave. seeing me ...
JOHN GREEN Writing does not resurrect. It buries..
JOHN GREEN Pero diré esto: Cuando los científicos del futuro aparezcan en mi casa con ojos robot y me digan q...
JOHN GREEN You’re arguing that the fragile, rare thing is beautiful simply because it is fragile and rare. Bu...
JOHN GREEN So how’s it going?”
“Okay. Glad to be home, I guess. Gus told me you were in the ICU?”<...
JOHN GREEN Still perfect,” he said. “Read to me.”
“This isn’t really a poem to read aloud when y...
JOHN GREEN In the beginning, there was nothing and from nothing came our species then behold the dawn of music....
GARY F EVANS... Were you there?”
She shook her head. “No. I was here in Nain having a
child.”
�...
FRANCINE RIVERS You're full of contradictions, Ms. Wallace."
I looked up at him and arched a brow. "I'm a girl...
TAMMARA WEBBER The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he sha...
FRANCINE RIVERS Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over.
RICHARD CARLSON We fall back into the past, we jump ahead into the future, and in this we lose our entire lives.
THICH NHAT HANH If I provide for this life and turn away from the Lord, I am wise for a moment, but lost forever.
FRANCINE RIVERS The only way he could have her was to shatter this stubborn faith of hers. In doing so, would he sha...
FRANCINE RIVERS As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union,...
GEORGE MASON We wait upon finite minds to validate infinite things— this is evidence of human stupidity.
C. JOYBELL C. There is no greater glory than to die for love.
GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nasti...
GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. S...
GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ I have always wished the present to resemble memory: because the present can be flat at times, and b...
LYDIA MILLET Remarkable trait in the American Character is the union, not very infrequent, of Yankee cleverness w...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON I was a bit of a Victorian Lady, fainting-wise.
JOHN GREEN While I did not fancy myself a particularly good person, I never thought my first real sexual action...
JOHN GREEN Mom sobbed something into Dad's chest that I wish I hadn't heard, and that I hope she never finds ou...
JOHN GREEN Come over here so I can examine your face with my hands and see deeper into your soul than a sighted...
JOHN GREEN But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassiu...
JOHN GREEN But this was the truth, a pitiful boy who desperately wanted not to be pitiful, screaming and crying...
JOHN GREEN I'm feeling grand. I'm on a rollercoaster only going up.
AUGUSTUS WATERS THE FAULT IN OUR STARS Should the trend continue in terms of innovation in the 25 European Union member states the innovati...
GREGOR KREUZHUBER Germany had a balancing function not only in European politics but in the European Union, between Br...
KATINKA BARYSCH We can leave a place behind, or we can stay in that place and leave our selfishness (often expressed...
JOHN H. GROBERG No, of course not. But surely you know your affair couldn't go on forever."
"Forever has no mea...
ELLEN HOPKINS A perfectly decent fellow may be driven by circumstances to commit a crime and if he's found out he'...
W.SOMERSET MAUGHAM Let me repeat. I have not read all the work of this present generation of writing. I have not had ti...
WILLIAM FAULKNER I hate saying corny things like "traveling incognito." But when I'm with somebody that's corny, I al...
J.D. SALINGER “Love is not to be discovered but felt.It is brewing in air across universe.One needs only open ey...
ANUJ SOMANY I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live.
THICH NHAT HANH You can't go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have is...now.
JAY ASHER Life is a journey, not a destination.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON It is so torturous to be in the crowd not only because the voice there is usually loud, but also oft...
ANUJ SOMANY When you grow up there are things that you would love to do make your father proud is one and have f...
GARY F EVANS... It seems like all the best people have all the worst habits.
THOMAS WALLACE SCHERZER A person who lives truly in present time is dependent on oneself only not on sycophants’ people.
ANUJ SOMANY I had a best friend once 20 years down the line a friendship that you just do not get now, i regarde...
GARY F EVANS... Tongues are a miraculous manifestations of being filled with the Holy Ghost.
PST ADELAJA SUNDAY The Buddha told him, "When we sit, we know we are sitting. When we walk, we know we are walking. Whe...
THICH NHAT HANH She plucked the blossoms from the bag and arranged them, one by one, in the water glass on her dress...
SARAH JIO Tomorrow is tomorrow.
Future cares have future cures,
And we must mind today.
SOPHOCLES To him, even the momentary was momentous.
G.K. CHESTERTON ‎You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the...
JAN GLIDEWELL I’m pretty sure there are some things in the dark that we’re not meant to see.
KARINA HALLE I know,” said November. He was pale and thin lipped. He helped October out of the wooden chair. �...
NEIL GAIMAN Wake up to a brand new day and realize why you woke up to meet the day! Live to the end of another d...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The proposition of an established classification of states as slave states and free states, as insis...
WILLIAM H. SEWARD There is no such thing as objectivity. We are all just interpreting signals from the universe and tr...
BONES THE DOCTOR IN THE PHOTO Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end.
GEORGE A. MOORE No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT That’s what I liked about those nuns. You could tell, for one thing, that they never went anywhere...
J.D. SALINGER Now is the only time we have, and the only time we have any control over.
RICHARD CARLSON It's a massive threat, not to the United States primarily, but to Europe and the former Soviet Union...
BARRY MCCAFFREY That natural disasters are required to provide Americans with a glimpse of reality in their own coun...
TARIQ ALI God is not impressed with what PRECEDES your name, but how you PROCEED in His Name."
BJ NELSON When Luke had descended into the River Styx, he would've had to focus on something important that wo...
RICK RIORDAN To get over the past, you first have to accept that the past is over. No matter how many times you r...
MANDY HALE We feel in many cases we're going to get a better response to some of our movies in Europe, or outsi...
STEVEN SODERBERGH When you live in the present, the past is forgotten & the future takes care of itself.
MANDY HALE No one should let yesterday use up too much of today. Easy to say, hard to live.
ANDREA HAIRSTON

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 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