Ambrose Bierce Quotes

696 Sourced Quotes

A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

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MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.

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APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider

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IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.

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Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind! Age backward, for nothing is before.

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PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, "He presided at the piccolo."

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READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in "dialect" and humor in slang.

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To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.

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RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries..

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A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.

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A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.

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TENACITY, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics.

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What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

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QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.

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Prospect, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.

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When God makes a beautiful woman, the devil opens a new register.

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DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.

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A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.

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PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

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

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MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.

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PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.

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DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

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PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

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BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters - the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.

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INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.

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LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.

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CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.

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OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

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