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Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran. His book The Devil's Dictionary was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. His story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature"; and his book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians was named by the Grolier Club as one of the 100 most influential American books printed before 1900.A prolific and versatile writer, Bierce was regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States, and as a pioneering writer of realist fiction. For his horror writing, Michael Dirda ranked him alongside Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. His war stories influenced Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway, and others, and he was considered an influential and feared literary critic. In recent decades Bierce has gained wider respect as a fabulist and for his poetry.In December 1913, Bierce traveled to Chihuahua, Mexico, to gain first-hand experience of the Mexican Revolution. He disappeared, and was rumored to be traveling with rebel troops. He was never seen again. Wikipedia  

✵ 24. June 1842 – 1914  •  Other names Ambrose Gwinett Bierce, Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
Ambrose Bierce photo
Ambrose Bierce: 204 quotes14 likes

Ambrose Bierce Quotes

“Land, n. 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. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Infancy, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, 'Heaven lies about us.' The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 346

“There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 345

“Advice, n. The smallest current coin.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Freebooter, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Absent, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Insurrection, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 367

“Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 364

“Helpmate, n. A wife, or bitter half.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Resign, v. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 358

“To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
What face he carries or what form he wears?
But woman's body is the woman. O,
Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,
But heed the warning words the sage hath said:
A woman absent is a woman dead.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Electricity, n. The cause of all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and good man's career.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“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.”

Ambrose Bierce

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!”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 373

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

Ambrose Bierce

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.”

Ambrose Bierce

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)

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

Ambrose Bierce

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.”

Ambrose Bierce

Town Crier http://books.google.com/books?ei=65MyT4yGB6bJ0QGg9p3mBw&id=GqUOAQAAMAAJ&q="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"&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.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 345

“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.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 352

“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.”

Ambrose Bierce

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)

“Freemasons, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucius, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids — always by a Freemason.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.”

Ambrose Bierce

Sometimes quoted with the spelling "forgo", but Bierce used "forego" in his 1911 Collected Works
Epigrams

“When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 354

“Revelation, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Gallows, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. ”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Witch, n. (1) An ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 371

“We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: Epigrams, p. 354

“Defenceless, adj. Unable to attack.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)