Ambrose Bierce quotes

“Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

“Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

“Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“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.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.”

— Ambrose Bierce

“Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.”

— Ambrose Bierce