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
What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.
Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
Lawyer – One skilled in the circumvention of the law.
Twice – Once too often.
Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute.
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need
Friendship: A ship big enough for two in fair weather, but only one in foul.
War: A by-product of the arts of peace.
Idiot - A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.