Quotes By Ambrose Bierce

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.

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

Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.

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.

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

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

Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

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

Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

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

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

Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.

Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.

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

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.

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

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.

Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.

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

Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.

Doubt is the father of invention.