Ambrose Bierce Quotes

696 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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Wit. n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

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PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.

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Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.

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Vote, v. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

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CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: "The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses."

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Land, n. 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. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.

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A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

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COMMENDATION n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resembles but do not equal our own.

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Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.

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PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

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I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.

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GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.

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ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as "One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name!..."

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Monday, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.

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Calamity, n. …Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

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HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

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Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

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Mark how my fame rings out from zone to zone:
A thousand critics shouting: "He's unknown!"

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If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.

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

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Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.

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WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made;... also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread "per capita" of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.

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EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.

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

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Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.

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Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

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