Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Lexicographer Quotes, Fool Quotes

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .

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Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.

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

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What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.

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A popular writer writes about what people think. A wise writer offers them something to think about.

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ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

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Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.

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PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.

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CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.

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HEART, n. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments . . . . It is now known that sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Heart Quotes , Action Quotes

SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Book Quotes , Fool Quotes

As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.

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To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.

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EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.

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DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

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A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.

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Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

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

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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.

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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.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Yankees Quotes , Europe Quotes