12 Quotes by Ambrose Bierce about Names

  • Author Ambrose Bierce
  • Quote

    PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

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  • Author Ambrose Bierce
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    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! . . ."

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  • Author Ambrose Bierce
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    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.

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  • Author Ambrose Bierce
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    QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

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  • Author Ambrose Bierce
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    Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.

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  • Author Ambrose Bierce
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    MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

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