Ambrose Quotes

As to the Indians, the guiding principle was, promise them anything just so long as they get out of the way.

Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.

I know stealing a foot is weird. But, hello, living in a house where a foot is available to be stolen is weird.

It is Peter himself that He says, 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.' Where Peter is, there is the Church. And where the Church, no death is there, but life eternal.

The emperor is in the Church, not about the Church.

Dice have their laws, which the courts of justice cannot undo.

Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.

ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

alone, adj. In bad company.

A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.

Die: To stop sinning suddenly.

EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.

WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as "liquor," sometimes as "rum." Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.

Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command

At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.

ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.

FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.

ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.

EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.

Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.

NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.

Philanthropist, n.: A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.

It's been my dream to be in a Western, and to be able to wear the clothes, have a big gun, wear a big hat, have a big horse, and be a take-no-prisoners lady in the Civil War era.

You don't hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school.

History is everything that has ever happened.

Writing is not the easiest way to make a living. Your work long hours, usually all by yourself. It is not a way to make money.

The great wars of the 20th Century made it into the worst Century ever.

Immigrants do more than help us win our wars, or set up cleaning shops or ethnic restaurants.

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.

Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.

Fear has no brains; it is an idiot.

RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.

An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.

PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.

Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire

PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.

REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.

RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.

In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.

Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts - guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.

DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.