Ambrose Bierce Quotes
American - Journalist June 24, 1842 - 1914


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
Ambrose Bierce

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

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

Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce

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

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

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

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

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
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

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