Ambrose Quotes

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one

Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.

moral, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.

Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

Use thy duties, as Noah's dove did her wings, to carry thee to the ark of the Lord Jesus Christ, where only there is rest.

ZEUS /n./ The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.

We should pray to the angels, for they are given to us as guardians.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

Mausoleum, n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.

I think it's just natural when you're governing, that it's not always easy to remain as pure in principle as you'd like to be.

A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.

Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.

You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.

Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Friendship: A ship big enough for two in fair weather, but only one in foul.

Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.

May each one of us glorify the Lord with the soul of Mary and rejoice in God with the spirit of Mary

The devil's snare does not catch you, unless you are first caught by the devil's bait.

Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.

OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.

OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.

Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.

The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.

BRANDY, n. A cordial composed on one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan.

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

For how can we adopt those things which we do not find in the holy Scriptures?

CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.

It is through history that we learn who we are and how we got that way, why and how we changed, why the good sometimes prevailed and sometimes did not.

Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.

Trial by jury. Live wherever you can make a living. How could a government based on such principles fail?

FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.

ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.

Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.