Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
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Advice, n. The smallest current coin.
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Backbite, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
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To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
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Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.
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Heaven, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.
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'There's no free will,' says the philosopher; 'To hang is most unjust.''There is no free will,' assents the officer; 'We hang because we must.'
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Insurrection, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
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While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide.
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Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
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O proud philanthropist, your hope is vainTo get by giving what you lost by gain.
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Generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
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Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
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This is a simple story of a battle; such a tale as may be told by a soldier who is no writer to a reader who is no soldier.
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The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
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Revelation, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
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Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
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Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state religion.
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Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
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Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
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Erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
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In'ards, n. pl. The stomach, heart, soul, and other bowels.
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Freebooter, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
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Non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.