Ambrose Bierce Quotes

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.

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

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.

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

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.

Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Enthusiasm – a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

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

Experience – the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

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

Forgetfulness – a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

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

Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.