ambrose bierce quotes

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"

Telephone, n.:
An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages
of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
-- Ambrose Bierce

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

-- Ambrose Bierce

optimist, n.:
A proponent of the belief that black is white.

A pessimist asked God for relief.
"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God.
"No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that
would justify them."
"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked
something -- the mortality of the optimist."
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,
and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

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, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as virtue.
-- Ambrose Bierce, on qualifiers

Senate, n.:
A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
-- Ambrose Bierce

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

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Labor, n.:
One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Alone, adj.:
In bad company.

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

A man is known by the company he organizes.
-- Ambrose Bierce

It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as
when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which
some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is
devoid of the sense of smell.

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

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

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Noncombatant, n.: A dead Quaker.

-- 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, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Distress, n.:
A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

brain, n:
The apparatus with which we think that we think.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Infancy, n.:
The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven
lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon
afterward.

-- Ambrose Bierce

Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They
then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Coronation, n.:
The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible
signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Barometer, n.:
An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we
are having.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Ambition, n:
An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while
living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
-- Ambrose Bierce

Abstainer, n.:
A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
pleasure.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Liar, n.:
A lawyer with a roving commission.

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Acquaintance, n.:
A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not
well enough to lend to.

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Peace, n.:
In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
periods of fighting.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Absentee, n.:
A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove
himself from the sphere of exaction.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are
safe, for you can watch both of his.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Inadmissible: Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of
testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with,
and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves
alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was
unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous
actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are
daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world
that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay
evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the
testimony of men long dead whose identy is not clearly established and
who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of
evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the
Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law...

But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved
that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to
mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women
were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still
unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and
in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than
the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death.
If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike
destitute of value. --Ambrose Bierce