Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Quotes

• ALONE, adj. In bad company.
  
  In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
  By spark and flame, the thought reveal
  That he the metal, she the stone,
  Had cherished secretly alone.
  Booley Fito

• ALTAR, n. The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.
  
  They stood before the altar and supplied
  The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.
  In vain the sacrifice! -- no god will claim
  An offering burnt with an unholy flame.
  M.P. Nopput

• AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

• ANOINT, v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
  
  As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,
  So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.
  Judibras

• ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.

• 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

• APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.

• APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

• APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider.
  
  When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
  And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
  That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
  Disease for the apothecary's health,
  Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
  "My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!" G.J.

• APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

• APRIL FOOL, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

• ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
  
  If I were a jolly archbishop,
  On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up --
  Salmon and flounders and smelts;
  On other days everything else.
  Jodo Rem

• ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

• ARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

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

• ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

• ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

• ARRAYED, pp. Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.

• ARREST, v.t. Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.
  
  God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
  _The Unauthorized Version_

• ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.
  
  "Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,"
  Consenting, he did speak up;
  "'Tis better you should eat it, pet,
  Than put it in my teacup."
  Joel Huck