Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Two Quotes, Understanding Quotes

INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Two Quotes , Understanding Quotes

ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Character Quotes , Italian Quotes

J, n. A consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel . . . from a Latin verb, "jacere", "to throw," because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape.

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Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.

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PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. . . . not be confused with that of foreordination. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.

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Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.

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MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Wisdom Quotes , Political Quotes

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Inspiring Quotes , Success Quotes

PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.

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Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else

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A pessimist asked God for relief. Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness, said God. No, replied the petitioner, I wish you to create something that would justify them. The world is all created,said God, but you have overlooked something

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When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.

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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697

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Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire

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UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Life Quotes , Nature Quotes

MAGNITUDE, n. Size [that is] purely relative. If everything in the universe were increased 1,000 diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been.

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NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

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Loquacity, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.

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RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.

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HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.

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