Quotes

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

“Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.” Ambrose Bierce

“Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.” Ambrose Bierce

“Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.” Ambrose Bierce

“The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.” Ambrose Bierce

“The covers of this book are too far apart.” Ambrose Bierce

“Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.” Ambrose Bierce

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

“Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.” Ambrose Bierce

“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.” Ambrose Bierce

“Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.” Ambrose Bierce

“Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.” Ambrose Bierce

“Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.” Ambrose Bierce

“Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.” Ambrose Bierce

“Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.” Ambrose Bierce

“Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.” Ambrose Bierce

“Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.” Ambrose Bierce

“Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.” Ambrose Bierce

“Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.” Ambrose Bierce

“Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.” Ambrose Bierce

“Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.” Ambrose Bierce

“Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.” Ambrose Bierce

“Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.” Ambrose Bierce

“Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.” Ambrose Bierce

“Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.” Ambrose Bierce

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

“Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.” Ambrose Bierce

“Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.” Ambrose Bierce

“Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.” Ambrose Bierce

“Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.” Ambrose Bierce