Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

About Ambrose Bierce:

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary. His vehemence as a critic, his motto "Nothing matters", and the sardonic view of human nature that informed his work, all earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.

Ambrose Bierce

Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

Ambrose Bierce

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

Ambrose Bierce

Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.

Ambrose Bierce

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

Ambrose Bierce

Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

Ambrose Bierce

Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

Ambrose Bierce

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Ambrose Bierce

Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Ambrose Bierce

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Ambrose Bierce

Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.

Ambrose Bierce

Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

Ambrose Bierce

Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

Ambrose Bierce

Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.

Ambrose Bierce

Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.

Ambrose Bierce

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.

Ambrose Bierce

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.

Ambrose Bierce

Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.

Ambrose Bierce

Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.

Ambrose Bierce

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

Ambrose Bierce

Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.

Ambrose Bierce

Author Bio

  • NameAmbrose Bierce
  • DescriptionAmerican editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
  • AliasesDod Grile; William Herman
  • BornJune 24, 1842
  • DiedDecember 26, 1913
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Journalist; Aphorist; Poet
  • WorksAn Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge; The Damned Thing; The Devil's Dictionary