Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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

War is Gods way of teaching Americans geography.

Destiny: A tyrants authority for crime and a fools excuse for failure.

Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.

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

Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.

Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.

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

Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

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

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freemans power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.