Ambrose Bierce Quotes (876 Quotes)


    DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.

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

    PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.

    INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary pquo' given in exchange for a substantial pquid'.





    Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.

    EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.

    MOUSQUETAIRE, n. A long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in New Jersey. But 'mousquetaire' is a might poor way to spell muskeeter.

    IMMODEST, adj. Having a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.

    AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit.

    ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.

    ACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

    Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

    QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.

    INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.

    BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.


    INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

    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.


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

    NONSENSE, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.

    EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.

    IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.

    CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

    MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor 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.

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

    MINE, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.

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

    TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.

    FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.

    INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.

    RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.

    WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made ... also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread 'per capita' of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.

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

    UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.


    MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn.

    Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

    OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

    DRAGOON, n. A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal measure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on horseback.

    Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.

    ACCORD, n. Harmony. ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

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

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

    LORD, n. In American society, an English tourist above the state of a costermonger.

    CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.

    ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.


    More Ambrose Bierce Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Politics - Mind - America - Woman - Wisdom & Knowledge - God - Art - Vice & Virtue - Place - World - Money & Wealth - Law & Regulation - Philosophy - Medicine & Medical - Religions & Spirituality - Truth - Fame - Fool - View All Ambrose Bierce Quotations

    Related Authors


    Walter Duranty - Robert Novak - Paul Krugman - Pat Buchanan - Naomi Klein - Joe Klein - Ed Turner - Carl Bernstein - Bob Hawke - Arianna Huffington


Page 1 of 18 1 2 18

Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections