Top 985 Quotes & Sayings by Ambrose Bierce - Page 3

Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.

Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.

Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.

Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.

Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

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

Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.

Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

A man is known by the company he organizes.

Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.

Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.

Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.

Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

Edible - good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.

Riot – A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.

Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second. This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.

He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.

Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.

A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box.

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.

Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.

To the eye of failure success is an accident.

Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

Fear has no brains; it is an idiot.

April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.

Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect — don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.