Ambrose Quotes

Think twice before you speak to a friend in need

Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.

Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.

LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp."

PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.

IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.

Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.

World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.

Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.

Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.

To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

Doubt is the father of invention.

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.

OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

Pantheism, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.

Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.

PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, "He presided at the piccolo."

Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.

When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.

FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.

There would be far fewer accidents if we could only teach telephone poles to be more careful.

resolute, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.

Economy, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.

Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

PIG, n. An animal ("Porcus omnivorus") closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.

Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

A modern school where football is taught.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

War: A by-product of the arts of peace.

A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.

Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.