Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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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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Defenceless, adj. Unable to attack.
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White, adj. and n. Black.
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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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Back, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.
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You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day.
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To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
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Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state religion.
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Sabbath, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
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Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
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Liberty, n. One of imagination's most precious possessions.
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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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Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.
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The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.
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Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
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Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
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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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Woman would be more charming if one could fall into her arms without falling into her hands.
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Positive, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked 'Unknown,' and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in 'honoring the memory' of him of whom no memory remains to honor; but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
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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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Labor, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property of B.
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Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
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In'ards, n. pl. The stomach, heart, soul, and other bowels.