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

Doubt is the father of invention.
Ambrose Bierce

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

When you doubt, abstain.
Ambrose Bierce

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

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

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

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

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

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