Ambrose Bierce Quotes

FOOL, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war — founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican government. He is from everlasting to everlasting — such as creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization.

"Good stranger," I continued, "I am ill and lost. Direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa"

Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

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

Oh, hush your croaking, Parlay,” chided one of the captains. “It ain’t going to blow.” “If I was a strong man, I couldn’t get up hook and get out fast enough,” the old man retorted in the falsetto of age. “Not if I was a strong man with the taste for wine yet in my mouth. But not you. You’ll all stay, I wouldn’t advise you if I thought you’d go, You can’t drive buzzards away from the carrion. Have another drink, my brave sailor-men. Well, well, what men will dare for a few little oyster drops! There they are, the beauties! Auction to-morrow, at ten sharp.

ACADEMIA: Originalmente enramada en la que los filósofos buscaban un sentido en la naturaleza; ahora, escuela en la que los imbéciles buscan un significado en la filosofía.

being asked to dinner is not always the same thing as being asked to dine.

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

he had nothing to say and he said it

ME, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.

INSURRECTION, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

ANTAGONIST, n. The miserable scoundrel who won't let us.

"An Italian proverb says: "The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.

In neither taste nor precision is any man's practice a court of last appeal, for writers all, both great and small, are habitual sinners against the light; and their accuser is cheerfully aware that his own work will supply ... many 'awful examples'...