Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Backbite, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

Ambrose Bierce

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• Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.

  

  Adam Ferguson
  • Future
  • Action
  • Design

• I had these experiences as a kid; I remember certain things happening in school that were horrifying that I would see, certain things of violence or certain things of cruelty, but around that, something might happen afterwards to cause everyone to laugh, and that always blew me away.

  

  Harmony Korine
  • School
  • Remember
  • Violence

• Above Coblentz almost every mountain has a ruin and a legend. One feels everywhere the spirit of the past, and its stirring recollections come back upon the mind with irresistible force.

  

  Bayard Taylor
  • Mind
  • Past
  • Mountain

• Water is always a support or a healing thing apart from, you know, love or peace of mind.

  Nastassja Kinski
  • Mind
  • Love
  • Peace

• If there's an incursion I don't go out of the house.

  

  Nader al-Masri
  • House
  • Go
  • Out

• I got my first Charvet knit tie when I was 15. I actually stole it from my father. I love them because you can wear them day to night. They're French and preppy and have been around since the 1800s.

  

  Nate Berkus
  • Love
  • Father
  • Night

• The more choices we give patients affected by depression, the better we will serve them.

  

  Carlos Santana Santana
  • Choices
  • Better
  • Depression

• The Moon and Mars were the two most likely candidates for life in the solar system; what exists beyond our solar system is mere guesswork.

  

  Walter Lang
  • Life
  • Moon
  • Solar

• The hooks didn't roll out any more sevens than my hands did before them.

  

  Harold Russell
  • Hands
  • More
  • Roll

• Well, I'm about to do another western, a pilot for HBO this fall.

  

  Walter Hill
  • Fall
  • Well
  • Pilot

• Don't let people talk you into what they think is you.

  

  Oprah Winfrey
  • People
  • Think
  • Talk

• You have a natural tendency to want an emotionally satisfying tale - and to make investments based on that - despite times when the actual data may be telling you something different.

  

  Barry Ritholtz
  • Different
  • May
  • Want

• As President Bush just said, a great nation doesn’t shy from the truth. It strengthens us. It emboldens us. It should fortify us.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Great
  • Truth

• While there are still imperialist aggressors, the state that has no defense power of its own to protect its sovereignty against the internal and external enemies is, in fact, not a fully independent and sovereign state.

  

  Kim Il-sung
  • Power
  • Independent

• America is the paradise of lawyers.

  

  Lawyer
  • America
  • Paradise

• We’d all like t’vote fer th’best man, but he’s never a candidate.

  

  Kin Hubbard

• I am quite surprised, that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about The Miracle Worker. We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet.

  

  Anne Bancroft
  • People
  • World
  • Good

• His speech is a burning fire.

  

  Algernon Charles Swinburne
  • Fire

• We might not object to the statement that Lear deserved to suffer for his folly, selfishness and tyranny; but to assert that he deserved to suffer what he did suffer is to do violence not merely to language but to any healthy moral sense.

  

  Andrew Coyle Bradley
  • Violence
  • Moral

• I am not a fan of the cupcake image. This idea that you can distract a girl with something frivolous like a cake or shoes or handbags, and she won't be a threat to men.

  

  Joanna Trollope
  • Men
  • She
  • Girl

• Ubuntu is not a biblical concept but an ancient African one. Nevertheless it falls back on one simple thing: that humans have been created for togetherness, and what drives us apart is greed, lust for power, and a sense of exclusion, but those are aberrations.

  

  Allan Boesak
  • Humans
  • Togetherness
  • Ubuntu

• I don't keep any copy of my books around... they would embarass me. When I finish writing my books, I kick them in the belly, and have done with them.

  

  Ludwig Bemelmans
  • Writing
  • Done

• Our country, if you read the 'Federalist Papers,' is about disagreement. It's about pitting faction against faction, divided government, checks and balances. The hero in American political tradition is the man who stands up to the mob - not the mob itself.

  

  Jonah Goldberg
  • Up
  • Country
  • American

• Backbite, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

  

  Ambrose Bierce