American author (1842-1914)
Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
When the young die and the old live, nature's machinery is working with the friction that we name grief.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave and blind as a stone.
AMBROSE BIERCE
A Cynic Looks at Life
Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Christians and camels receive their burdens kneeling.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
For study of the good and the bad in woman two women are a needless expense.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offense.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Men who expect universal peace through invention of destructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who, noting the improvement of agricultural implements, should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
The question of human immortality is the most momentous that the mind is capable of conceiving. If it is a fact that the dead live all other facts are in comparison trivial and without interest. The prospect of obtaining certain knowledge with regard to this stupendous matter is not encouraging. In all countries but those in barbarism the powers of the profoundest and most penetrating intelligences have been ceaselessly addressed to the task of glimpsing a life beyond this life; yet today no one can truly say that he knows. It is as much a matter of faith as ever it was.
AMBROSE BIERCE
A Cynic Looks at Life
Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions; where it can get a foothold it makes a stand; where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"The Night-Doings at Deadman's"