Ambrose Bierce Quotes

TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.

IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands, you are safe, for you can watch both his.

A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

Connoisseur, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.

Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound.

Humanity, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.

COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.

He did all of this without thinking but with care.

Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.

MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.

Resolute, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.

Brower was as courageous a criminal as ever lived to be hanged.

Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.

ZEUS /n./ The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.

Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it.

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.

The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two.

An Italian proverb says: The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.

Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

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

Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure

ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

I was what some foolish persons are pleased to call, and others, more foolish, are pleased to be called - an aristocrat.

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.

The wife, or bitter half.

Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.

PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.

PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

Age is provident because the less future we have the more we fear it.

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

Liar: A lawyer with a roving commission.

Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.

REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.

CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do "me"?

Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.

UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.

Convictions are variable; to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.

Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.

Diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.

Pleasure, n. The least hateful form of dejection.

STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.

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

April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Empty wine bottles have a bad opinion of women.

ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.

PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.

Achievement is the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.

A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.

Humor, like Death, has all seasons for his own.

Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.

When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.

So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter's field I shall soon have both. What wealth!

Think twice before you speak to a friend in need

Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.

LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.

Phoenix, n.
The classical prototype of the modern 'small hot bird.'

ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden.

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.

Moral, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.

MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust." "There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must.

CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.

Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.

The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forebearance among men.

To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.

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