Best 926 quotes of Ambrose Bierce on MyQuotes

DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.

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

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.

Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box.

Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.

DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

Dictionary: a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic

DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead - a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.

diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.

DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.

Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command

DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.

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

Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.

Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.

Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.

Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.

Doubt is the father of invention.

Duck-bill, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.

DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.

Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.

EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition. 'I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,' said Brillat-Savarin, beginning an anecdote. 'What!' interrupted Rochebriant; 'eating dinner in a drawing-room?' 'I must beg you to observe, monsieur,' explained the great gastronome, 'that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I had dined an hour before.'

ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.

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.

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

EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other-which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.

EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.

ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.

Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.

Empty wine bottles have a bad opinion of women.

ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.

ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of death by injection.

Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.

Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.

EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.