Ambrose Bierce quotes - page 17

SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. (Ambrose Bierce)
THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. View quote
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DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters. View quote
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OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock. View quote
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AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit. View quote
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CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor. View quote
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ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction. View quote
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PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull. View quote
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ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice. View quote
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PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it. View quote
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COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power. (Ambrose Bierce)
SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine. View quote
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REPLICA, n. A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original. It is so called to distinguish it from a copy, which is made by another artist. When the two are mae with equal skill the replica is the more valuable, for it is suppo. View quote
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LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer. View quote
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RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue. View quote
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GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers. View quote
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PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read. View quote
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PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself. View quote
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RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded. View quote
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LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman. View quote
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BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind. (Ambrose Bierce)
SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones. View quote
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LINEN, n. 'A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.' Calcraft the Hangman. View quote
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SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it. View quote
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QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not. View quote
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