"EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbour's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime, the violet and rose are languishing for a nibble at his gluteus maximus."

Society, Death, Mortality, History, Science

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"EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbour's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime, the violet and rose are languishing for a nibble at his gluteus maximus."

Exlpore more Society quotes

"So you've been gone a couple days,' Alison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss...A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost.' I smiled. 'You can't go disappearing on everybody like this, Hazel. You miss too much."

John Green, American Author

Society, Absence, Media, Reality, Celebrity

"Our minds of infinite possibilities have been plowed, seeded and cultivated by every word, institution and sacred belief we hold dear, to produce a foul harvest of exclusion, apathy, brute domination and death."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

Society, Truth, Regret, Wisdom, Power

"In a stress pressure-cooker like America, I believe we will see more and more shooting massacres. Violence is in our cultural DNA."

Bryant McGill, American Poet

Society, Truth, Power, Regret, Today

"A society becomes a breeding ground of violence and terrorism when it closes its door to new ideas and forces the citizens to live in the prison of conforming thoughts."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Society, Violence, Terrorism, Conformity

"Oh shit did you just dis the feminine genderI'll pummel your ass then stick you in a blenderYou think I like Tori and Ani so I can't rhymeBut I got flow like Ghostbusters got slimeObjectify women and it's fuckin' onYou'll be dead and gone like ancient Babylon."

John Green, American Author

Society, Feminism, Expression, Art, Power

"I was pure, before you defiled me, and don't you forget it. As though the concept of purity is anything more than the construct of selfish, competitive men stampeding toward the women to call dibs. I'll be damned if I'm not worth stampeding toward, but the prize had better be me, hymen or no hymen."

Thomm Quackenbush, American Author

Society, Purity, Values, Competition, Selfishness

"Don't judge people by their religious, cultural, or professional background. Judge if you must, by their behavior with other people."

Abhijit Naskar, Indian Author

Society, Judgment, Behavior, Truth, Humanity

"Oh! You are a woman! You are the pure reflection of my mother, sister, and daughter. I can never hurt you."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Society, Woman, Mother, Sister, Daughter

"A country is poor not because they have no wealth but because they have no good ideas."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

Society, Country, Wealth, Ideas

"Either you are homophobic or you are a human - you cannot be both."

Abhijit Naskar, Indian Author

Society, Humanity, Truth, Justice, Equality

Explore more quotes by Ambrose Bierce

"Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."

Nature

"Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows."

Success

"Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due."

Compromise

"You scoundrel, you have wronged me," hissed the philosopher, "May you live forever!"

Justice

"Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking."

Talk

"NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi."

Satire

"Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves."

Admiration

"I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats."

Democracy

"Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity."

Ability

"Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain."

Opinion