Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
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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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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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Cat, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
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Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Freebooter, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
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Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
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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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Non-combatant, n. A dead Quaker.
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Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
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Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others.
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Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
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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.
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Clock, n.: A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.
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Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a blockhead.
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If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
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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.