Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Himself Quotations

Philanthropist. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

PHILANTHROPIST, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

RESPLENDENT, adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade.The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet- and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them. --"Chronicles of the Classes

Vote: The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

COENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.O Coenobite, O coenobite, Monastical gregarian, You differ from the anchorite, That solitudinarian: With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick; With dropping shots he makes him sick. --Quincy Giles

BAPTISM, n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two ways --by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.But whether the plan of immersion Is better than simple aspersion Let those immersed And those aspersed Decide by the Authorized Version, And by matching their agues tertian. --G.J.

SCARIFICATION, n. A form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious. The rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot iron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent spared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement. Scarification, with other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction. The founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a penitential method: the good that it does and the taint of justice.

SATAN, n. One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. "There is one favor that I should like to ask," said he."Name it.""Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.""What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul --you ask for the right to make his laws?""Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself." It was so ordered.

ABSENTEE, n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

Abstainer - a weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.Said a man to a crapulent youth: ""I thought You a total abstainer, my son.""""So I am, so I am,"" said the scrapgrace caught --""But not, sir, a bigoted one."" --G.J.

DANGER, n.A savage beast which, when it sleeps, Man girds at and despises, But takes himself away by leaps And bounds when it arises. --Ambat Delaso

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.

Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.