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Ambrose Bierce Quotes
«ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten.When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. --Oliver Cromwell»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
abridge, abridged, abridges, abridging, Cromwell, Human Events, impel, impelling, impels, Oliver, Oliver Cromwell, separation, shorten
«WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made, and which is used also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread _per capita_ of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
cereal, French people, palatable, tolerably, whiskies, whisky
«DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead --a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
circumstance, conversion, conversions, Conversion of, digestion, Dr., Dr, dyspepsia, evolved, imperfect, infer, inferred, infers, Jeremiah, sufferers, victual, victuals
«ALLIGATOR, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian.»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
alligator, alligators, crocodile, crocodiles, detail, effete, Go West, Grown up, Herodotus, Indus, monarchies, notch, Old World, The Crocodile, The Crocodiles, The monarchy
«LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
antique, antiques, artistic, brute, diligence, folds, illustration, illustrations, inertia, justly, Laocoon, piece of work, representing, scripture, serpents, that name, The old man
«PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
ancient Romans, An Ancient, distinguished, His country, patrician, plebeian, roman, saturate, saturated
«NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes --some of which have a large sale.»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
actualities, actuality, altitude, bearing, category, composition, corresponds, distinctly, distinguishing, efface, effaced, effaces, effacing, essentials, First Impressions, fitted, impressions, in Russia, literal, Literary Art, literary composition, Long To, mount, novels, pad, padded, pads, pages, panorama, plot, probability, relation to, reporting, Russia, sale, short stories, short story, successive, successively, The Impressions, the novel, The short story, three parts, totality, wing
«HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.So skilled the parson was in homiletics That all his normal purges and emetics To medicine the spirit were compounded With a most just discrimination founded Upon a rigorous examination Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration. Then, having diagnosed each one's condition, His scriptural specifics this physician Administered --his pills so efficacious And pukes of disposition so vivacious That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em. But Slander's tongue --itself all coated --uttered Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered That in the case of patients having money The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey. --_Biography of Bishop Potter_»
Author: Ambrose Bierce
(Editor, Journalist, Writer)
| Keywords:
adapting, administered, afflicted, bilious, bishop, capacities, coated, compounded, congregation, convalescent, diagnosed, diagnoses, diagnosing, discrimination, disposition, efficacious, emetic, emetics, examination, homiletics, just in case, mutter, muttered, muttering, parson, Parsons, patients, physician, pills, puke, pulse, purges, purging, respiration, rigorous, scandalously, scriptural, sermons, skilled, slander, specifics, sugar, The Spiritual, uttered, vivacious