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Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914] American

Rank: 101
Poet (with poems)

Agnosticism, Gothic, Realism, Satire, Speculative

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary.

Politics, Art, Happiness, Age, Best, Business, Education, Experience, Failure, Future, History, Imagination, Intelligence, Knowledge, Marriage, Nature, Patience, Patriotism, Positive, Power, Religion, Technology, Time, Truth, Wisdom, Women, Attitude, Beauty, Chance, Death, Faith, Famous, God, Government, Humor, Independence, Jealousy, Learning, Legal, Medical, Mom, Society, Sports, Success, War, Wedding

Quote	Tags	Rank
Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.	Happiness, Wedding	101
Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.		102
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.	Politics	103
Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.	Art	104
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.	Future, Happiness, Time	105
Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.	Best, Medical	106
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.	Business	107
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.	Age	108
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.	Nature	109
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.	Marriage	110
Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.	Mom	111
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.	Politics	112
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.	Art	113
Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.		114
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.		115
Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.		116
Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.		117
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.	Marriage	118
Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.	Patience	119
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.		120
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.	God, War	121
Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.	Patriotism	122
Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.		123
Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.		124
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.		125
To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.	Future	126
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.	Government, Intelligence	201
Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.	Education, Learning	202
The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.		203
Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.		204
Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.	Art	205
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.	History	206
Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.	Truth	207
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.		208
When you doubt, abstain.	Wisdom	209
Doubt is the father of invention.	Imagination	210
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.		211
There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.		212
Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.	Death	213
Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.		214
Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead.	Power	215
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.	Education	216
Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.		217
Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.	Positive	218
The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.	History	219
Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.		220
Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.	Truth	221
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.	Women	222
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.		223
Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.	Experience, Wisdom	224
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.	Politics	225
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.	Politics	226
Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.		301
Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.	Women	302
Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.	Patience	303
Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.	Happiness	304
Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.	Power	305
Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.		306
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.		307
Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.		308
Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.		309
Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.	Time	310
Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.		311
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.		312
The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.	Best	313
Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.		314
Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.		315
Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.		316
Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.	Experience	317
Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.		318
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.	Sports	319
Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.		320
Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.	Imagination	321
Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.	Independence, Intelligence	322
Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.		323
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.	Society	324
Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.	Technology	325
I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.		326
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.	Failure	401
The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.	Knowledge	402
Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.		403
Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.	Success	404
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.	Age	405
To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.	Positive	406
Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.		407
Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.		408
Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.		409
Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.	Legal	410
Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.		411
Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.		412
Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.		413
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.	Chance	414
Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.	Humor	415
Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.		416
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.		417
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.	Faith, Knowledge	418
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.		419
Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.		420
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.		421
Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.	Politics	422
Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.	Nature	423
Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.	Technology	424
Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.	Beauty	425
Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.		426
Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.	Jealousy	501
Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.		502
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.		503
Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.		504
Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.		505
Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.		506
Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.		507
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.	Business	508
Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.	Religion	509
Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.	Religion	510
Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.		511
Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.		512
Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.		513
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.		514
Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.		515
We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.	Attitude	516
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.		517
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.		518
Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.	Failure	519
It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.		520
Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.		521
An egotist is a person of low taste - more interested in himself than in me.		522
Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.		523
Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.		524
Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.		525
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.	Patriotism	526
Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.		601
Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.		602
Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.		603
Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.		604
Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.		605
Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.		606
Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.		607
Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.		608
Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.		609
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.		610
The covers of this book are too far apart.		611
A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.		612
Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.		613
Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.	Famous	614
Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.		615
Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.		616
Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.		617
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.		618
A man is known by the company he organizes.		619
Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.		620
Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.		621
Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.		622
Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.		623
Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.		624
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.		625
Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.		626

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