Quotes By Ambrose Bierce

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.

When you doubt, abstain.

Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

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

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

Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.

Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

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.

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

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

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

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.

The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

The covers of this book are too far apart.

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

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

Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.

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

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

Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

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

Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.

Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.

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

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