Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.

Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.

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.

Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow.

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

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

INGRATE, n. One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.

HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.

Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.

Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.

Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.

ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Musca maledicta"). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.

PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.

HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.

GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.

TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.

PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.

ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.

REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

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

Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.

BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something. A man of great wealth, or one who has been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.

Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.

A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa

FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London