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Ambrose Bierce Quotes - Page 35

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

The best kind of onion soup is the simplest kind.

The best kind of onion soup is the simplest kind.

Onions, Soup, Kind

CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.

Evil, Bears, Fortitude

Ambrose Bierce (2004). “The Devil's Dictionaries: The Best of the Devil's Dictionary and the American Heretic's Dictionary”, p.22, See Sharp Press

JOSS-STICKS- Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.

Chinese, Religion, Sacred

Ambrose Bierce (1906). “The Cynic's Word Book”, p.207, Lulu.com

PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.

Philosophy, Ancient, Modern

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.173, 谷月社

PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.

Christian, Religion, Progress

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2476, Delphi Classics

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

Republic, Obedience, Authority

Ambrose Bierce, S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz (2000). “The Fall of the Republic and Other Political Satires”, p.218, Univ. of Tennessee Press

INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both - as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.

Men, Two, Poetry

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.104, 谷月社

NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.

Process, Latter, Existence

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.151, 谷月社

PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.

Creation, Existence, Factors

Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.96, Courier Corporation

The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

Love, Knowledge, Quality

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.13, 谷月社

READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in "dialect" and humor in slang.

Country, Reading, Sphinx

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

SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.

Giving, Peculiar, Sacred

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.276, ReadHowYouWant.com

The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

Men, Body, Congress

Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.

Respect, Irreverence, Deities

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.190, ReadHowYouWant.com

REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. . . . the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.

Change, Happiness, People

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.186, 谷月社

Dance, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.

Dance, Daughter, Sex

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.39, 谷月社

PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

Hope, Philosophy, Pessimism

Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.93, Courier Corporation

INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

Mind, Causes, Influence

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.135, University of Georgia Press

If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.

Would Be, Too Much, Fame

Ambrose Bierce (2015). “A Cynic Looks at Life”, p.38, Sheba Blake Publishing

ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.

Practice, Long, Simplicity

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.15, 谷月社

RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.

Language, Oneself

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.187, 谷月社

PALM, n. A species of tree . . . of which the familiar "itching palm" ("Palma hominis") is most widely distributed . . . . This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver.

Vegetables, Tree, Gold

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2476, Delphi Classics

DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.

Political, Progress, Degradation

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.43, 谷月社

VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

Understanding, Suffering, Dunces

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.462, ReadHowYouWant.com

LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.

War, Self Esteem, Swim

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.153, University of Georgia Press

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