A Quote by Ambrose Bierce

applause, n. The echo of a platitude. — © Ambrose Bierce
applause, n. The echo of a platitude.

Quote Topics

You can tell by the applause: There's perfunctory applause, there's light applause, and then there's real applause. When it's right, applause sounds like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.
One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.
In some Mayan villages they even have a stage beyond the elder that they call the Echo Person. They say that when an Echo Person, whether a man or a woman, speaks, the words echo both in this world and in the other world. That's why they are called Echo People.
Comedy crowds - we always want to come out and ask you, 'How you feeling?' We always say that, 'By a round of applause, how do you feel?' Right? 'By a round of applause, how you feeling?' It's the only place in the world that you judge how you're feeling by a round of applause... There's never like a car accident, people all over the ground, people running over - 'Ma'am! Ma'am! By a round of applause, how do you feel? By a round of applause - she's not clapping!
There is always a certain noise in applause: even in the applause we give ourselves.
Awards are like applause, and every actor likes to hear applause.
To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts.
I appreciate your applause, but I don't do it for applause. I do it for cash, it's much better.
Applause, applause, life is our cause.
Laughter is much more important than applause. Applause is almost a duty. Laughter is a reward.
You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, but none will mean more to you than that applause from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end.
The Renaissance… was based on a new idea of the importance of the individual. But this was a fragile foundation, because individuals depended on constant applause and admiration to sustain them. There is a shortage of applause in the world, and there is not enough respect to go around.
Applause is an instinctive, unconscious act expressing the sympathy between actors and audience. Just as our art demands more instinct than intellect in its exercise, so we demand of those who watch us an apppreciation of the simple unconscious kind which finds an outlet in clapping rather than the cold intellectual approval which would self-consciously think applause derogatory. I have yet to meet the actor who was sincere in saying that he disliked applause.
I asked of Echo 't other day (Whose words are few and often funny), What to a novice she could say Of courtship, love, and matrimony. Quoth Echo, plainly, "Matter-o'-money.
Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them to the world, save that the echo repeats only the last art, but fame relates all, and often more than all.
It's important to be conscious of the world we live in. We get one chance, as far as I'm concerned, but we all leave an echo. It's important that our echo resonates positively on the planet and its inhabitants after we're gone.
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