Best 926 quotes of Ambrose Bierce on MyQuotes

A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.

A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.

ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.

A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.

Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.

Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.

Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.

According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians.

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

ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.

ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.

A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.

A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything. The master of the art accomplishes the formidable task of discrimination.

Achievement; the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

A chop is a piece of leather skillfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants.

ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.

A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.

Acquaintance: "A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

adherent, n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects to get.

ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

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

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Adolescence: A stage between infancy and adultery.

Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.

Advice, the smallest current coin.

Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.

AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

Age - That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.

Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.

A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.

aim, n. The task we set our wishes to.

A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.

A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.

A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.

alone, adj. In bad company.

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.

A lottery is a tax on stupidity.