Ambrose Bierce Quotes (876 Quotes)

POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.

MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.

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

URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, 'I beg your pardon,' and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.

RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.

MAIDEN, n. A young person of the unfair sex. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though beaten out of the field by the canary which, also, is more portable.

TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.

INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.

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

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

LIAR, n. One who tells an unpleasant truth.

REALLY, adv. Apparently.

HARBOR, n. A place where ships taking shelter from storms are exposed to the fury of customs.

RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.

UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

RECONSIDER, v. To seek a justification for a decision already made.

AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.

DISOBEY, v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.

REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

SYMBOL, n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere 'survivals' as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.

RIME, n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The verses themselves, as distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually (and wickedly) spelled 'rhyme.'

BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method ... of obtaining money by false pretences by 'reading character' in the wrinkles of the hand. The pretence is not altogether false... for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word 'dupe.'

MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.

MAUSOLEUM, n. The final and funniest folly of the rich.

HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.

ROAD, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.

REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.

PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.

DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit.

NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.

FORCE, n. 'Force is but might,' the teacher said p 'That definition's just.' The boy said naught but throught instead, Remembering his pounded head 'Force is not might but must'

LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject as an editor by not writing about it.

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

RIOT, n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

ALONE, adj. In bad company.

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

PLOW, n. An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.

BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something. A man of great wealth, or one who has been pitchforked into high station, has commo.

OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession it meant 'own,' and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.

LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.

Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.