Ambrose Bierce Quotes
Patience – A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.
When God makes a beautiful woman, the devil opens a new register.
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.
Speak when you are angry – and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.
Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind! Age backward, for nothing is before.
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.
Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection; thine own is open at thy feet.
Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.
Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.
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.
The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.
Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.
"Why dost thou weep?" "For the death of my wife. Alas! I shall never again see her!" "Thy wife will never again see thee, yet she does not weep."
To parents only, death brings an inconsolable sorrow. When the young die and the old live, nature's machinery is working with the friction that we name grief.
These are the prerogatives of genius: To know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
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.
Asked to describe the Deity, a donkey would represent him with long ears and a tail. Man's conception is higher and truer: he thinks of him as somewhat resembling a man.
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.
