Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Biercewas an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary. His vehemence as a critic, his motto "Nothing matters", and the sardonic view of human nature that informed his work, all earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 June 1842
CityMeighs County, OH
CountryUnited States of America
There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.
An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization.
Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
The sum of religion, says Pythagoras, is to be like him thou worshipest. Had Pythagoras lived in our day he would have seen his mistake. The sum of modern religion is to make him thou worshipest like unto thyself.
A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.
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.
Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
New York is too strenuous for me; it gets on my nerves.
A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.
Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation.
Labor is one of the processes by which A acquires property for B.