Ambrose Bierce: Man

Ambrose Bierce was American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. Explore interesting quotes on man.
Ambrose Bierce: 408 quotes14 likes

“Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.”

Ambrose Bierce

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.”

Ambrose Bierce

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“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.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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

“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)

“Clock, n.: A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)