Garter, n. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.
More Quotes from Ambrose Gwinett Bierce:
ALTAR, n. The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.They stood before the altar and supplied The fire themselves in which their fat was fried. In vain the sacrifice --no god will claim An offering burnt with an unholy flame. --M.P. NopputAmbrose Gwinett Bierce
HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed the cage of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of this dicky-bird is Porcus Rockefelleri. Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
Patience - a minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the Jews observance of the day was enforced by a Commandment of which this is the Christian version Remember the seventh day to make thy neighbor keep it wholly. To the Creator it seemed fit and expedient that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the Early Fathers of the Church held other views. So great is the sanctity of the day that even where the Lord holds a doubtful and precarious jurisdiction over those who go down to (and down into) the sea it is reverently recognized, as is manifest in the following deep-water version of the Fourth CommandmentSix days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able, And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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Based on Topics: Countries Quotes, Woman QuotesBased on Keywords: desolating, garter, stockings
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