Ambrose Bierce Quotes About Nature
-
MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.
→ -
A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
→ -
UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
→ -
PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
→ -
REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.
→ -
Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
→ -
Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
→ -
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").
→ -
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
→ -
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".
→ -
Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
→ -
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.
→ -
NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.
→ -
LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system - an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.
→
Related Authors
-
Mark Twain Author -
William Faulkner Writer -
Stephen Crane Author -
Guy de Maupassant Writer -
Edgar Allan Poe Author -
Robert Louis Stevenson Novelist -
Franz Kafka Writer -
Sarah Orne Jewett Novelist -
Algernon Blackwood Writer -
Arthur Machen Author -
S. T. Joshi Critic -
H. P. Lovecraft Author -
Jorge Luis Borges Writer -
Kate Chopin Author -
Pancho Villa Soldier -
Bram Stoker Novelist -
Jack London Author -
Henry James Writer -
Nathaniel Hawthorne Novelist -
H. L. Mencken Journalist