Ambrose Bierce Quotes
-
Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
-
Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amok by hamstringing it.
-
Vote, v. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
-
Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.
-
When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
-
Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it.
-
Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous
-
Clarionet, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet - two clarionets.
-
The virtues chose Modesty to be their queen.'I did not know that I was a virtue,' she said. 'Why did you not choose Innocence?''Because of her ignorance,' they replied. 'She knows nothing but that she is a virtue.'
-
Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think... 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.
-
Birth, n. The first and direst of all disasters.
-
Justice, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
-
Saint, n. A dead sinner, revised and edited.
-
There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.
-
Liberty, n. One of imagination's most precious possessions.
-
Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
-
Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
-
Pig, n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
-
Congratulation, n. The civility of envy.
-
Alone, adj. In bad company.
-
To the eye of failure success is an accident.
-
Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.
-
The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon.
-
Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.