Quotations by Ambrose Bierce

POLITICS: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · POLITICS

GHOST: The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · GHOST

IMPARTIAL: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · IMPARTIAL

PLEASE: To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · PLEASE

PIRACY: Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · PIRACY

HANGMAN: An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a populace having a criminal ancestry. In some of the American States his functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey, where executions by electricity have recently been ordered—the first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody questioning the expediency of hanging Jerseymen.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · HANGMAN

INTIMACY: A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · INTIMACY

HERS: His.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · HERS

ABNORMAL: Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · ABNORMAL

PIG: An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · PIG

PLATONIC: Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · PLATONIC

HEAD-MONEY: A capitation tax, or poll-tax.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · HEAD-MONEY

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

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · DIAPHRAGM

CREDITOR: One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · CREDITOR

PRIVATE: A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · PRIVATE

MERCHANT: One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · MERCHANT

REFERENDUM: A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · REFERENDUM

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

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · NEIGHBOR

HARMONISTS: A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · HARMONISTS

NEGRO: The piece de resistance in the American political problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to build their equation thus: "Let n = the white man." This, however, appears to give an unsatisfactory solution.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · NEGRO

MEANDER: To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · MEANDER

CORPORAL: A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military ladder.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · CORPORAL

PREFERENCE: A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · PREFERENCE

AUSTRALIA: A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · AUSTRALIA