Quotations by Ambrose Bierce

CONSERVATIVE: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

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

OBSTINATE: Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

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

MANICHEISM: The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.

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

EPICURE: An opponent of Epicurus, an abstemious philosopher who, holding that pleasure should be the chief aim of man, wasted no time in gratification from the senses.

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

HEBREW: A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogether superior creation.

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

RETRIBUTION: A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

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

RECONCILIATION: A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.

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

HOG: A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of this dicky-bird is Porcus Rockefelleri. Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.

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

RESTITUTION: The founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.

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

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

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

PROVIDENTIAL: Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.

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

BLACKGUARD: A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box of berries in a market—the fine ones on top—have been opened on the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.

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

ACEPHALOUS: In the surprising condition of the Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, passed through his neck, as related by de Joinville.

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

ORTHOGRAPHY: The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to be conceded hereafter.

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

PLEONASM: An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.

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

OWE: To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.

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

DIARY: A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

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

ANOINT: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

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

PICKANINNY: The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.

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

AUCTIONEER: The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

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

EXHORT: In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.

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

DATARY: A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman Catholic Church, whose important function is to brand the Pope's bulls with the words Datum Romae. He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of God.

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

POSITIVISM: A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

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