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Ambrose Bierce Quotes about Science - Page 2

All Ambrose Bierce 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 quotes 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

GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

Science, Students, Medical

The Devil's Dictionary

ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

Science, Arsenic, Cosmetics

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2357, Delphi Classics

GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

Science, Machines, Reason

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.81, 谷月社

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

Science, Snakes, Funeral

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.12, University of Georgia Press

NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.

Philosophy, Fall, Science

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.149, 谷月社

ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.

Eye, Science, Ears

Ambrose Bierce (1996). “Poems of Ambrose Bierce”, p.75, U of Nebraska Press

HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

Spiritual, Science, Needs

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.91, 谷月社

PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

Science, Pockets, Phrenology

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.181, University of Georgia Press

IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.

Knowledge, Science, Kind

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.117, University of Georgia Press

FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.

Sex, Science, Female

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.82, ReadHowYouWant.com

HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.

Science, West Indies, Sea

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.147, ReadHowYouWant.com

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

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

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

MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

Dog, Science, Medicine

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.141, 谷月社

Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

Nature, Science, Admonition

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.183, University of Georgia Press

BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker.

Science, Physicians, Body

Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.22, 谷月社

HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

Christian, School, Science

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.111, University of Georgia Press

LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used ... as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.

Science, Blue, Two

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2446, Delphi Classics

Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

Spring, Believe, Science

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.180, ReadHowYouWant.com

BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something. A man of great wealth, or one who has been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

Science, Men, Thinking

Ambrose Bierce (1958). “The Devil's Dictionary: A Selection of the Bitter Definitions of Ambrose Bierce”, p.20, Prabhat Prakashan

EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other-which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.

Dog, Science, Order

Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.79, ReadHowYouWant.com

SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.

Science, Logic, Assumption

Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2522, Delphi Classics

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

Science, Pulse, Physicians

Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.56, University of Georgia Press

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