Ambrose Bierce quotes:

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.

Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

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

Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.

Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.

Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.

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

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.

Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.

Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

Edible - 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.

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.

Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.

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

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.

The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

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.

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.

The covers of this book are too far apart.

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

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.

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

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

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

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.

Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.

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

To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

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

Enthusiasm, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be."

DOG: A kind of additional or subsidiary Diety designed to catch the overflow or surplus of the world's worship."

Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work."

Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated."

Enthusiasm, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience."

Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband."

PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of "requiescat in pace", attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than "reductus in pulvis".

Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.

An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.

Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.

ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.

HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.

MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.

The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.

Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.

MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.

He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.

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.

In the algebra of psychology, X stands for a woman's heart.

X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.

REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.

REAR, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.

Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.

PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.

OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph."

PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Musca maledicta"). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.

FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.

April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous.

International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one

ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

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.

OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.

HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.

AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

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

A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

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

NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.

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

ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.