Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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

"Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding."

"Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility."

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

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

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

"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."

"Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

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

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

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

"Doubt is the father of invention."

"Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions."

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

"Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping."

"Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage."

"Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two."

"Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly."

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

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

"What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends."

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

"Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows."

"Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance."

"Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization."

"Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow."

"When you doubt, abstain."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age."

"It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better."