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Ambrose Bierce quotes
English
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“CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen. ”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“TELEPHONE, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“HAPPINESS, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“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.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“DESTINY, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for failure.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. ”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“ALLIANCE, n. 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.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“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
“LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“BRIDE, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“ADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
“There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet—two clarionets.”
Ambrose Bierce
,
The Devil's Dictionary
view all 60 quotes
Related topics
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foolishness
ignorance
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selfishness
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faith
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taste
listening
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The Devil's Dictionary
(60)
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