Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Ambition Quotes, Men Quotes

The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Ambition Quotes , Men Quotes

There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Genius Quotes

Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions; where it can get a foothold it makes a stand; where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Wall Quotes , Army Quotes

MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Hero Quotes , People Quotes

Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Book Quotes , Forever Quotes

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.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Hope Quotes , Pride Quotes

ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Men Quotes , Heaven Quotes

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

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STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Stories Quotes , Narrative Quotes

STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Truth Quotes , Stories Quotes

ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination . . .

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Imagination Quotes , Romance Quotes

RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Food Quotes , Cooking Quotes

Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Powerful Quotes , Hatred Quotes

PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Time Quotes , Nature Quotes

BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

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Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

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RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Language Quotes

EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition. 'I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,' said Brillat-Savarin, beginning an anecdote. 'What!' interrupted Rochebriant; 'eating dinner in a drawing-room?' 'I must beg you to observe, monsieur,' explained the great gastronome, 'that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I had dined an hour before.'

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Food Quotes , Drawing Quotes

Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Change Quotes , Art Quotes

Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Yield Quotes , Political Quotes