Top 100 Ambrose's Quotes
#1. Over two hundred years," Jeanne said, finishing his sentence as she shoveled a mountain of scrambled eggs onto Ambrose's plate. Her gave her a ravishing smile, and said "Marry me, Jeanne" leaning over to kiss the hand holding the serving spoon. "In your dreams," she laughed...
Amy Plum
#2. Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Ambrose Bierce
#3. QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the U.S. Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House.
Ambrose Bierce
#4. Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Ambrose Bierce
#5. Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
Ambrose Bierce
#6. MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.
Ambrose Bierce
#7. Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
#8. Inexpedient: Not calculated to advance one's interests.
Ambrose Bierce
#9. All science is a two-edged sword. It is pure only in the mind, at conception, as an idea, an equation, or just some new way of looking at things. But once it's out there in the world, it becomes whatever the world wants it to be. Germ warfare, nuclear holocaust, or a cure for cancer.
David Ambrose
#10. TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect ("Glossina morsitans") whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist ("Mendax interminabilis").
Ambrose Bierce
#11. Diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
Ambrose Bierce
#12. LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.
Ambrose Bierce
#13. I've always tried to be fair to my subjects. That's easy when they are as likable and admirable as Lewis and Clark, or Eisenhower.
Stephen Ambrose
#14. Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.
Ambrose Bierce
#15. An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.
Ambrose Bierce
#16. So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter's field I shall soon have both. What wealth!
Ambrose Bierce
#17. Use thy duties, as Noah's dove did her wings, to carry thee to the ark of the Lord Jesus Christ, where only there is rest.
Isaac Ambrose
#18. 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! ... "
Ambrose Bierce
#19. How about this?' Simmon asked me. "Which is worse, stealing a pie or killing Ambrose?" I gave it a moment's hard thought. "A meat pie, or a fruit pie?
Patrick Rothfuss
#20. INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
Ambrose Bierce
#21. The Church's foundation is unshakable and firm against the assaults of the raging sea. Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it. Although the elements of this world constantly batter and crash against her, she offers the safest harbor of salvation for all in distress.
Ambrose
#23. LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg "pate".
Ambrose Bierce
#24. NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.
Ambrose Bierce
#26. 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.
Ambrose Bierce
#27. Do you think there's any way someone like Ambrose could fall in love with someone like me?" Fern caught Bailey's gaze in the mirror again, knowing he would understand.
"Only if he's lucky.
Amy Harmon
#28. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
Ambrose Bierce
#30. I am actually as good as everybody else pretends to be. It's scary.
Dean Ambrose
#31. ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.
Ambrose Bierce
#32. ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination ...
Ambrose Bierce
#33. MYTHOLOGY, n. 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.
Ambrose Bierce
#34. OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.
Ambrose Bierce
#35. HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.
Ambrose Bierce
#36. Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.
Ambrose Bierce
#37. All that existed was precious in Crazy Horse's religion - whatever a man did or thought was good, was wakan, so long as he obeyed his own inner voice, for that too was wakan.
Stephen E. Ambrose
#38. Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
Ambrose Bierce
#39. 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.
Ambrose Bierce
#40. A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
Ambrose Bierce
#41. I think it's just natural when you're governing, that it's not always easy to remain as pure in principle as you'd like to be.
Rona Ambrose
#42. J, n. A consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel ... from a Latin verb, "jacere", "to throw," because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape.
Ambrose Bierce
#43. HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
Ambrose Bierce
#44. ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.
Ambrose Bierce
#45. And you haven't been betrayed yet, Nick. You don't know what that's like. What it does to you. The scars it leaves that never fade. (Ambrose)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#46. PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.
Ambrose Bierce
#47. 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.
Ambrose Bierce
#48. PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
Ambrose Bierce
#49. Consult, v.t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on. Contempt, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.
Ambrose Bierce
#51. It's been my dream to be in a Western, and to be able to wear the clothes, have a big gun, wear a big hat, have a big horse, and be a take-no-prisoners lady in the Civil War era.
Lauren Ambrose
#52. PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
Ambrose Bierce
#53. ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden.
Ambrose Bierce
#54. Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce
#55. ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon- shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author's ideas that they were concatenated without abruption.
Ambrose Bierce
#56. LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.
Ambrose Bierce
#57. LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.
Ambrose Bierce
#58. Mammon, n. The god of the world's leading religion. His chief temple is in the city of New York
Ambrose Bierce
#59. In the algebra of psychology, X stands for a woman's heart.
Ambrose Bierce
#60. When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
Ambrose Bierce
#61. There's a lot I don't understand ... but not understanding is better not believing - Ambrose
Amy Harmon
#62. Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
Ambrose Bierce
#63. Rocky, if I've learned anything from my train wreck of a marriage, it's that no one can take care of me better than I can.
Starr Ambrose
#64. FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.
Ambrose Bierce
#65. INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Ambrose Bierce
#66. Ambrose turned on his heel and stormed off, but before he made it through the door, Elodin burst out singing:
'He's a well-bred ass, you can see it in his stride!
And for a copper penny he will let you take a ride!
Patrick Rothfuss
#67. A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
Ambrose Bierce
#68. Where a man's heart is, there is his treasure also.
Saint Ambrose
#69. Before man's fall the rose was born,St. Ambrose says, without the thorn;But for man's fault then was the thornWithout the fragrant rose-bud born; But ne'er the rose without the thorn.
Robert Herrick
#70. MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.
Ambrose Bierce
#71. The world has been created for everyone's use, but you few rich are trying to keep it up for yourselves. For not merely the possession of the earth, but the very sky, the air, and the sea are claimed for the use of the rich few ... The earth belongs to all, not just to the rich.
Ambrose
#72. Sobel was Jewish, urban, with a commission from the National Guard. Hester had started as a private, then earned his commission from Officer Candidate's School (OCS). Most
Stephen E. Ambrose
#73. 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
#74. Any reform of that fundamental nature, potentially constitutional, it has to go to the people. It has to be a be a referendum, and that's why it was a plebiscite in all of the provinces in which it's been attempted.
Rona Ambrose
#75. ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.
Ambrose Bierce
#76. TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
Ambrose Bierce
#77. At the hangars, each jumpmaster was given two packs of papers, containing an order of the day from Eisenhower and a message from Colonel Sink, to pass around to the men. "Tonight is the night of nights," said Sink's. "May God be with
Stephen E. Ambrose
#78. Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
Ambrose Bierce
#79. When his father asked why A wasn't apple or B wasn't bird or C wasn't cat, young Ambrose explained that things didn't always have to be the way you'd expect. Everybody does apples and birds and cats, he said, and it's boring to do what everybody else does.
C.S. Richardson
#80. Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.
Ambrose Bierce
#81. GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Chet Williamson
#82. PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution - they knew no more of the matter than he.
Ambrose Bierce
#83. Book - Learning : The dunce's derisive term for all knowledge that transcends his own impertinent ignorance.
Ambrose Bierce
#84. Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Ambrose Bierce
#85. There's no, 'Oh my God, somebody else is gonna come back and take my spot.' I wanna have a spot that's my spot, that nobody can take away, because nobody else is me.
Dean Ambrose
#86. There's nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don't know.
Ambrose Bierce
#87. The seer crow was outraged. "Mangiz does not forget an insult, hedgepig."
Ambrose smiled cheekily. "Good, then here's a few more for you to remember, you pot-bellied, cross-eyed, feather-bottomed excuse for a duck.
Brian Jacques
#88. The Ambrose Malachai will never be forgotten. But it's up to you as to how he'll always be remembered.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#89. Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.
Ambrose Bierce
#90. Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce
#91. The devil's snare does not catch you, unless you are first caught by the devil's bait.
Ambrose
#92. TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
#93. Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
Ambrose Bierce
#94. HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.
Ambrose Bierce
#95. I never thought about being on a series before. It seemed like such a big commitment. But I love going to work every day. This is not about ego, it's about work, and that's refreshing in this town.
Lauren Ambrose
#96. It has been observed
that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of
others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that
the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
Ambrose Bierce
#97. I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
Ambrose Bierce
#98. A subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship ... [H]is master works for the means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.
Ambrose Bierce
#99. Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
#100. INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to - in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning.
Ambrose Bierce
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