The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
AMBROSE BIERCEAborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
More Ambrose Bierce Quotes
-
-
Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Labor is one of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Alliance – in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Scriptures – The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
AMBROSE BIERCE