Ambrose Bierce quotes

Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual
responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce

Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
Ambrose Bierce

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
Ambrose Bierce

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
Ambrose Bierce

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce

Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no
gills.
Ambrose Bierce

Justice, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the
citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Ambrose Bierce

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Ambrose Bierce

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.
Ambrose Bierce

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

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.
Ambrose Bierce

Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
Ambrose Bierce

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of
things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce

Positive, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce

Opportunity, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
Ambrose Bierce

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
Ambrose Bierce

Circus, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and
children acting the fool.
Ambrose Bierce

Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied
by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.
Ambrose Bierce

Liberty, n. One of imagination's most precious possessions.
Ambrose Bierce

Cannon, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce

Congratulation, n. The civility of envy.
Ambrose Bierce

Advice, n. The smallest current coin.
Ambrose Bierce

Neighbor, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows
how to make us disobedient.
Ambrose Bierce

Conservative, n. A statesman enamored of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants
to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce

Vote, v. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a
wreck of his country.
Ambrose Bierce

Insurrection, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad
government.
Ambrose Bierce

Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always
been dominant and controlling. The idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of
thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything;
his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations
of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.
Ambrose Bierce

Once, adj. Enough.
Ambrose Bierce

Twice, adv. Once too often.
Ambrose Bierce

<< Previous    1  [2]  3  4    Next >>