Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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.
– Ambrose Bierce
When you doubt, abstain.
– Ambrose Bierce
Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
– Ambrose Bierce
Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
– Ambrose Bierce
Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
– 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
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
– Ambrose Bierce
Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
– Ambrose Bierce
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.
– Ambrose Bierce
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
– Ambrose Bierce
Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
– Ambrose Bierce
To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
– Ambrose Bierce
Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
– Ambrose Bierce
Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
– Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
– Ambrose Bierce
Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
– Ambrose Bierce
Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
– Ambrose Bierce
Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
– Ambrose Bierce
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
– Ambrose Bierce
Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
– Ambrose Bierce
Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
– Ambrose Bierce
Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
– Ambrose Bierce
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
– Ambrose Bierce
Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
– Ambrose Bierce
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.
– Ambrose Bierce
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
– Ambrose Bierce
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.
– Ambrose Bierce
Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
– Ambrose Bierce
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.
– Ambrose Bierce
Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
– Ambrose Bierce
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.
– Ambrose Bierce