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
CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
Kindness n: A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.
RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.
The best kind of onion soup is the simplest kind.
PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.
SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it.
LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp."