Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Admiration: Our polite recognition of another man's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
Women and foxes being weak are distinguished by superior tact.
Ambrose Bierce
Achievement: The death of an endeavor and the birth of disgust.
Ambrose Bierce
Perseverance n.: A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves a glorious success.
Ambrose Bierce
Apologize v: to lay the foundation for a future offence.
Ambrose Bierce
Infidel n: in New York one who does not believe in the Christian religion in Constantinople one who does.
Ambrose Bierce
Heathen n. A beknighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
Ambrose Bierce
Pray v: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
Commendation n: the tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble but do not equal our own.
Ambrose Bierce
Responsibility n: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God Fate Fortune Luck or one's neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
Peace: in international affairs a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
Ambrose Bierce
Painting n: the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
Ambrose Bierce
To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
Apologize v: to lay the foundation for a future offence.
Ambrose Bierce
Infidel n: in New York one who does not believe in the Christian religion in Constantinople one who does.
Ambrose Bierce
Heathen n. A beknighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
Ambrose Bierce
Pray v: to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
Commendation n: the tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble but do not equal our own.
Ambrose Bierce
Responsibility n: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God Fate Fortune Luck or one's neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
Peace: in international affairs a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
Ambrose Bierce
Painting n: the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
Ambrose Bierce
To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
Philanthropist: a rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
Ambrose Bierce
Marriage n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master a mistress and two slaves making in all two.
Ambrose Bierce
Litigant: a person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bone.
Ambrose Bierce
Appeal in law: to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Ambrose Bierce
Ignoramus: a person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.
Ambrose Bierce
Acquaintance n: a person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to.
Ambrose Bierce
Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
Ambrose Bierce
History n: an account mostly false of events mostly unimportant which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves and soldiers mostly fools.
Ambrose Bierce
Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
Ambrose Bierce
Destiny n: a tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce
That sovereign of insufferables.
Ambrose Bierce
Education n: that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Ambrose Bierce
Mausoleum n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
Ambrose Bierce
Epitaph n: an inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Ambrose Bierce
Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is instead of as it should be.
Ambrose Bierce
One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
Ambrose Bierce
A statesman who is enamored of existing evils as distin-quished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce
Christian: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour.
Ambrose Bierce
Abstainer: a weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce
Piracy n: commerce without its folly-swaddles - just as God made it.
Ambrose Bierce
Bore: a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Ambrose Bierce
The echo of a platitude.
Ambrose Bierce
Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce
You scoundrel, you have wronged me," hissed the philosopher, "May you live forever!
Ambrose Bierce
Achievement is the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
Ambrose Bierce
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Ambrose Bierce
Prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
Ambrose Bierce
Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.
Ambrose Bierce
On this night I had searched for them without success, fearing to find them; they were nowhere in the house, nor about the moonlit dawn. For, although the sun is lost to us for ever, the moon, full-orbed or slender, remains to us. Sometimes it shines by night, sometimes by day, but always it rises and sets, as in that other life.
Ambrose Bierce
JEALOUS, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
Ambrose Bierce
DOG: A kind of additional or subsidiary Diety designed to catch the overflow or surplus of the world's worship.
Ambrose Bierce
Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus:Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore-Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.
Ambrose Bierce
They were obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion.
Ambrose Bierce
Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.
Ambrose Bierce
When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, then said: "My son, I have attended to thy story and I know the maiden. I have myself seen her, as have many. Know, then, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away!
Ambrose Bierce