Ambrose Bierce Quotes

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Ambrose Bierce

Profession : Journalist

Birth : June 24, 1842

Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

Ambrose Bierce

Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

Ambrose Bierce

History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

Ambrose Bierce

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

Ambrose Bierce

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.

Ambrose Bierce

To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Ambrose Bierce

Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Ambrose Bierce

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

Ambrose Bierce

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.

Ambrose Bierce

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

Ambrose Bierce

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

Ambrose Bierce

Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

Ambrose Bierce

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

Ambrose Bierce

Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.

Ambrose Bierce

Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

Ambrose Bierce

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

Ambrose Bierce

Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.

Ambrose Bierce

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

Ambrose Bierce

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

Ambrose Bierce

Edible - 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.

Ambrose Bierce