Ambrose Bierce: Trending quotes

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Ambrose Bierce: 408 quotes14 likes

“The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 361

“Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standards in matters of thought and conduct. To be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!”

Source: Epigrams, p. 373

“If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 353

“This is a simple story of a battle; such a tale as may be told by a soldier who is no writer to a reader who is no soldier.”

Source: What I Saw At Shiloh (1881), I

“Incompossible, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both — as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Convictions are variable; to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 367

“To the eye of failure success is an accident.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 373

“Backbite, v. t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men--were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended.”

Town Crier http://books.google.com/books?ei=65MyT4yGB6bJ0QGg9p3mBw&id=GqUOAQAAMAAJ&q=&quot;The+fact+that+boys+are+allowed+to+exist+at+all+is+evidence+of+a+remarkable+Christian+forbearance+among+men+were+it+not+for+a+mawkish+humani-tarianism+coupled+with+imperfect+digestive+powers+we+should+devour+our+young+as+Nature+intended&quot;&pg=PA74#v=onepage column in the San Francisco News-Letter (c. 1870)

“Strive not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 345

“Liberty, n. One of imagination's most precious possessions.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 352

“The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 368

“A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.”

Source: Epigrams, p. 363

“Un-American, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Dawn, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“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.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)