Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Account Quotations

Mythology: the body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later

SALAMANDER, n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.

GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown'Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 'twere known, Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide, Wherein he blundered and how much he lied. --Salder Bupp

History is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.