Quotations by Ambrose Bierce

BACCHUS: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

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

MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT: Government.

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

PLAGUE: 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 as we of to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

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

ARMOR: The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

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

HALF: One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussion arose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the negative. Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a viper.

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

REBEL: A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

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

PHRENOLOGY: The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

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

FOREFINGER: The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors.

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

BIRTH: The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

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

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

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

NOISE: A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

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

MUMMY: An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

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

HARANGUE: A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harangue-outang.

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

DEFENCELESS: Unable to attack.

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

MILLENNIUM: The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.

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

LITIGATION: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

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

AGE: That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit.

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

OVATION: In ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place.

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

HOMOEOPATHIST: The humorist of the medical profession.

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

CORPORATION: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

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

BEG: To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.

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

CONSUL: In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

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

OPTIMISM: The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof—an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

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

ENCOMIAST: A special (but not particular) kind of liar.

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