Famous Ambrose Bierce Quotations

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"Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Marriage. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two."
by Ambrose Bierce
"A man is known by the company he organizes."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking."
by Ambrose Bierce
"The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling."
by Ambrose Bierce
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to."
by Ambrose Bierce
"I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London."
by Ambrose Bierce
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Doubt is the father of invention."
by Ambrose Bierce
"The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity."
by Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"When you doubt, abstain."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."
by Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure."
by Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends."
by Ambrose Bierce
"A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it."
by Ambrose Bierce
"A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Admiration. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves"
by Ambrose Bierce
"Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves."
by Ambrose Bierce
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher"
by Ambrose Bierce
"Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish."
by Ambrose Bierce
"An egotist is a person of low taste - more interested in himself than in me."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Barometer, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Brain an apparatus with which we think we think."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Callous, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another."
by Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Calamities are of two kinds misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Cabbage A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction."
by Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum"
by Ambrose Bierce
"Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C."
by Ambrose Bierce
"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."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Dawn: When men of reason go to bed."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate"
by Ambrose Bierce
"Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Edible - good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm."
by Ambrose Bierce
"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."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Egotist a person more interested in himself than in me."
by Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Faith Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Faith, noun. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own."
by Ambrose Bierce
"Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured."
by Ambrose Bierce


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