Ambrose Bierce Quotes

696 Sourced Quotes

No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.

Ambrose Bierce
CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.

Ambrose Bierce
A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.

Ambrose Bierce
The bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.

Ambrose Bierce
Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man. The pig is taught by sermons and epistles / To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.

Ambrose Bierce
OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

Ambrose Bierce
Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.

Ambrose Bierce
PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.

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

Ambrose Bierce
FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.

Ambrose Bierce
PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation.... Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy.

Ambrose Bierce
Gratitude, n. A sentiment lying midway between a benefit received and a benefit expected.

Ambrose Bierce
MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.

Ambrose Bierce
POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.

Ambrose Bierce
Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.

Ambrose Bierce
GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

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

Ambrose Bierce
Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.

Ambrose Bierce
SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death.

Ambrose Bierce
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.

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

Ambrose Bierce
INADMISSIBLE- Not competent to be considered. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible... but there is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence.

Ambrose Bierce
Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.

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

Ambrose Bierce
Critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.

Ambrose Bierce
An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.

Ambrose Bierce
LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper... the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species.

Ambrose Bierce
WEAKNESSES, n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.

Ambrose Bierce
REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

Ambrose Bierce
Renown, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame - a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.

Ambrose Bierce