Ambrose Bierce Quotes

A man is known by the company he organizes.
~ 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.
~ Ambrose Bierce


A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
~ Ambrose Bierce


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


Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.
~ Ambrose Bierce


All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
~ 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.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.
~ 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.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.
~ Ambrose Bierce


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


Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
~ Ambrose Bierce


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


Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
~ Ambrose Bierce


The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
~ Ambrose Bierce


The covers of this book are too far apart.
~ Ambrose Bierce


The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
~ 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


Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.


Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
~ Ambrose Bierce


The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.
~ Ambrose Bierce


The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
~ Ambrose Bierce


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


Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
~ 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


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.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
~ Ambrose Bierce


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


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


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


Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
~ 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.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
~ Ambrose Bierce


The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
~ Ambrose Bierce


There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
~ Ambrose Bierce


We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
~ Ambrose Bierce


What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
~ Ambrose Bierce


What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.
~ Ambrose Bierce


History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
~ 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.
~ Ambrose Bierce


I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.
~ 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


Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
~ Ambrose Bierce


In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
~ Ambrose Bierce


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


Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
~ Ambrose Bierce


It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
~ Ambrose Bierce


When you doubt, abstain.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
~ Ambrose Bierce


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


To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
~ Ambrose Bierce


War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
~ Ambrose Bierce


We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
~ 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.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
~ Ambrose Bierce


An egotist is a person of low taste - more interested in himself than in me.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
~ Ambrose Bierce


Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
~ Ambrose Bierce