Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Able Quotations

RIBROASTER, n. Censorious language by oneself concerning another. The word is of classical refinement, and is even said to have been used in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the most fastidious writers of the fifteenth century --commonly, indeed, regarded as the founder of the Fastidiotic School.

PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success."Persevere, persevere!" cry the homilists all, Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl."Remember the fable of tortoise and hare -- The one at the goal while the other is --where?" Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace, The goal and the rival forgotten alike, And the long fatigue of the needless hike. His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew, He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place, A winner of all that is good in a race. --Sukker Uffro

PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession.His light estate, if neither he did make it Nor yet its former guardian forsake it, Is portable improperly, I take it. --Worgum Slupsky

PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains. --Rev. Dr. Mucker(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)Cold pie is a detestable American comestible. That's why I'm done --or undone -- So far from that dear London.(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)

Love is a temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.

CABBAGE, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. The cabbage is so called from Cabagius, a prince who on ascending the throne issued a decree appointing a High Council of Empire consisting of the members of his predecessor's Ministry and the cabbages in the royal garden. When any of his Majesty's measures of state policy miscarried conspicuously it was gravely announced that several members of the High Council had been beheaded, and his murmuring subjects were appeased.

QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.He extracted from his quiver, Did the controversial Roman, An argument well fitted To the question as submitted, Then addressed it to the liver, Of the unpersuaded foeman. --Oglum P. Boomp

Embalm, v.: To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and the rose are languishing for a nibble at his glutaeus maximus.

IMPROBABILITY, n.His tale he told with a solemn face And a tender, melancholy grace. Improbable 'twas, no doubt, When you came to think it out, But the fascinated crowd Their deep surprise avowed And all with a single voice averred'Twas the most amazing thing they'd heard -- All save one who spake never a word, But sat as mum As if deaf and dumb, Serene, indifferent and unstirred. Then all the others turned to him And scrutinized him limb from limb -- Scanned him alive; But he seemed to thrive And tranquiler grow each minute, As if there were nothing in it."What! what!" cried one, "are you not amazed At what our friend has told?" He raised Soberly then his eyes and gazed In a natural way And proceeded to say, As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:"O no --not at all; I'm a liar myself.

IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.

PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.To one who, journeying through night and fog, Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog, Experience, like the rising of the dawn, Reveals the path that he should not have gone. --Joel Frad Bink

Opportunity is a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

FLOP, v. Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals.

MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon --that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.The man who writes in Saxon Is the man to use an ax on --Judibras

INNATE, adj. Natural, inherent --as innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it ""a black eye."" Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one's ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one's country, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance of one's personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one's diseases.

TOMB, n. The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be innocently ""glened"" as soon as its occupant is done ""smellynge,"" the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has been greatly dignified.

LAUREATE, adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect of a national crime.

GALLOWS, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.Whether on the gallows high Or where blood flows the reddest, The noblest place for man to die -- Is where he died the deadest. --(Old play)

ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. Byron, who recovered long enough to call it "entuzy-muzy," had a relapse, which carried him off --to Missolonghi.

Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one's opponents in baffling one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.So plain the advantages of machination It constitutes a moral obligation, And honest wolves who think upon't with loathing Feel bound to don the sheep's deceptive clothing. So prospers still the diplomatic art, And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart. --R.S.K.

ACCIDENT, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.