Quotations by Ambrose Bierce

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

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

RITE: A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.

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

ABATIS: Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.

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

INGRATE: One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.

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

CONSULT: To seek another's disapproval of a course already decided on.

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

RATTLESNAKE: Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.

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

APOTHECARY: The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider.

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

NOTORIETY: The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.

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

LORD: In American society, an English tourist above the state of a costermonger, as, lord 'Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The traveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as "Sir," as, Sir 'Arry Donkiboi, or 'Amstead 'Eath. The word "Lord" is sometimes used, also, as a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to be rather flattery than true reverence.

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

BATH: A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

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

REASONABLE: Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.

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

DELUGE: A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

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

QUIVER: A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.

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

CARMELITE: A mendicant friar of the order of Mount Carmel.

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

PANDEMONIUM: Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying to his pride of distinction.

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

CORONATION: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.

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

CORSAIR: A politician of the seas.

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

EDIBLE: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

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

MAN: An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.

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

MISERICORDE: A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.

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

APPEAL: In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

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

ALLAH: The Mahometan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.

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

RED-SKIN: A North American Indian, whose skin is not red—at least not on the outside.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · RED-SKIN

DEGENERATE: Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors. The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it required ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes of the Trojan war could have raised with ease. Homer never tires of sneering at "men who live in these degenerate days," which is perhaps why they suffered him to beg his bread—a marked instance of returning good for evil, by the way, for if they had forbidden him he would certainly have starved.

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