Ambrose Bierce Names Quotations

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Gout, a physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient

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.

PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as "One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! . . ."

QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

Take not God's name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.

Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.

HOG, n. 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.

DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.

PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.

In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.

For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.