Ambrose Quotes

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.

Right now I just want to chill for a while. Take a hiatus from all the craziness. To clean my house, see my family. Just see some movies and pick some strawberries.

FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London

APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.

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

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

Winning the Revolutionary War, or the Civil War, or World War II were the turning points in our history, the sine qua non of our forward progress.

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

O Christian, never be proud of things that are so transient, injurious, and uncertain as the riches of this evil world! But set your heart on the true and durable riches of grace in Christ Jesus.

SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.

MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.

ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

Crazy Horse saw history as integrated in the present, incorporated into daily life.

OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph."

MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.

GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.

MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.

MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697

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.

Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.

It is easier to look wise than to talk wisely.

If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don't, you have achieved half your failure.

You don't gamble to win. You gamble so you can gamble the next day.

Habit: A shackle for the free.

Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

When in Rome, live as the Romans do. When elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere.

I spent two months in a jail once. In a Mexican border town.

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

To be content, to find true love, is what essentially drives us all, but if found, would it be recognized?

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.

What is impossible to God? Not that which is difficult to His power, but that which is contrary to His nature.

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

Except a man fear the Lord, he is unable to renounce sin.

Reverence: the spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.

As the print of the seal on the wax is the express image of the seal itself, so Christ is the express image - the perfect representation of God.