"Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery." ― Ambrose Bierce Topic(s): Great More From Ambrose Bierce "The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations." "Convent – a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness." "Experience – the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced." More In Great "Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons."― John Ruskin "One of the great strengths of the United States is… we have a very large Christian population – we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."― Barack Obama "The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises."― Sigmund Freud