Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!
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Cat, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
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The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.
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Liberty, n. One of imagination's most precious possessions.
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To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
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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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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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Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
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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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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
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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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Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
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Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state religion.
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When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.
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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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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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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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Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
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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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Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
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Ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
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Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.
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Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
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A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.