Ambrose Bierce quotes - page 2

Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. (Ambrose Bierce)
Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Ambrose Bierce
Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
Ambrose Bierce
Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead.
Ambrose Bierce
Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
Ambrose Bierce
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
Ambrose Bierce
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce
Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
Ambrose Bierce
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Ambrose Bierce
The covers of this book are too far apart. (Ambrose Bierce)
Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Ambrose Bierce
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Ambrose Bierce
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.
Ambrose Bierce
Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose Bierce
Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
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
Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
Ambrose Bierce
Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
Ambrose Bierce
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. (Ambrose Bierce)
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce
Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.
Ambrose Bierce
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
Ambrose Bierce
Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
Ambrose Bierce