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Ambrose Bierce Quotes - Page 24

All Quotes Accidents Adversity Affection Age Aging Alcohol Army Art Assumption Atheism Attitude Authority Beauty Belief Boundaries Business Certainty Change Character Cheating Childhood Children Choices Church Clarinet Confusion Cooking Country Creation Critics Culture Cynicism Death Democracy Desire Devil Diplomacy Disappointment Doubt Drinking Dying Earth Education Ego Energy Envy Eternity Evidence Evil Excellence Expectations Failure Faith Fame Family Fashion Fear Feelings Finance Food Friendship Funeral Funny Future Genius Giving God Gold Growth Guilt Happiness Hatred Heart Heaven Hell History Home Honor Hope House Ignorance Imagination Independence Injustice Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Joy Judging Judgment Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Language Latin Leadership Learning Liars Liberty Life Literature Logic Losing Love Lying Marriage Math Military Money Morality Motherhood Music Nature Nihilism Office Opportunity Optimism Passion Past Patriotism Peace Philosophy Pleasure Politics Power Prejudice Preparation Pride Property Prosperity Purpose Quality Reality Religion Responsibility Revenge Revolution Running Sacrifice School Science Silence Sin Skins Son Soul Spirituality Spring Stupidity Style Success Suffering Taxes Temptation Theology Time Truth Understanding Violence Virtue Wall War Water Wealth Wife Wine Wisdom Work Worship Writing Youth

QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.

QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.

Money, Numbers, Pockets

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.174, 谷月社

Duck-bill, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.

Ducks, Bills, Canvas

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.48, 谷月社

ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.

Men, Heaven, Growing

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.241, 谷月社

GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.

Mean, Generosity, Noble

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.94, University of Georgia Press

TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.

Food, Passion, Cooking

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.223, University of Georgia Press

NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.

Leadership, Kindness, Angel

Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.85, Courier Corporation

TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.

Strong, Food, Cooking

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.225, University of Georgia Press

Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.

Rome, Two, Church

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2506, Delphi Classics

REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.

Wisdom, Truth, Book

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.200, University of Georgia Press

LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.

Writing, Light, Editors

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.133, 谷月社

A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.

Atheism, Gabriel, Mecca

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.37, ReadHowYouWant.com

Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.

America, Details, World

Ambrose Bierce (2011). “Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs”, p.571, Library of America

Rhubarb: essence of stomach ache.

Food, Essence, Cooking

PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

Food, Names, Pie

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.164, 谷月社

BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Etna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

Block, Wine, Science

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.26, University of Georgia Press

PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.

Science, Two, Shade

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.238, ReadHowYouWant.com

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow.

Retirement, Spring, Believe

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2418, Delphi Classics

GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain-the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A.

Science, Illustration, Lovely

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.100, University of Georgia Press

PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.

Truth, Sea, Departed

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.165, 谷月社

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

Writing, Character, Science

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.78, 谷月社

LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

Son, Men, Illustration

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.163, ReadHowYouWant.com

Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.

Funny, Moving, Humor

Ambrose Bierce (2011). “Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs”, p.565, Library of America

RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

Radicalism, Affair, Morrow

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.176, 谷月社

WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, "the wrath of God," "the day of wrath," etc. . . .

Character, Wrath, Quality

Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.137, Courier Corporation

CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

Life, Two, Kind

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.31, University of Georgia Press

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