Ambrose Bierce Quotes (876 Quotes)

END, n. The position farthest removed on either hand from the Interlocutor.

Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

HUMANITY, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

INNATE, adj. Natural, inherent -- as innate ideas . . . that we are born with . . . . The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof . . .

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others.

HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is 2.50 in gold. Zoology is full of surprises.

PREDICAMENT, n. The wage of consistency.

MALEFACTOR, n. The chief factor in the progress of the human race.

PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable as, 'the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur.'

CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offense.

RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.

REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.

VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

Acquaintance a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

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

INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning.

You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times each day.

EPITAPH, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

PLEASURE, n. The least hateful form of dejection.