Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”

— Ambrose Bierce

2. “There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

4. “Finance is the art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager.”

— Ambrose Bierce

5. “Perseverance – a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.”

— Ambrose Bierce

6. “Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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7. “Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”

— Ambrose Bierce

8. “A lottery is a tax on stupidity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

9. “A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.”

— Ambrose Bierce

10. “Friendship: A ship big enough for two in fair weather, but only one in foul.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

12. “If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

13. “PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless precaution – they knew no more of the matter than he.”

— Ambrose Bierce

14. “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”

— Ambrose Bierce

15. “A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

16. “Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.”

— Ambrose Bierce

17. “NIRVANA- In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

20. “Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.”

— Ambrose Bierce

21. “Pantheism, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.”

— Ambrose Bierce

22. “NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.”

— Ambrose Bierce

23. “PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.”

— Ambrose Bierce

24. “Doubt is the father of invention.”

— Ambrose Bierce

25. “LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.”

— Ambrose Bierce

26. “Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.”

— Ambrose Bierce

27. “What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.”

— Ambrose Bierce

28. “He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

29. “HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.”

— Ambrose Bierce

30. “SYCOPHANT- One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.”

— Ambrose Bierce

31. “Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo.”

— Ambrose Bierce

32. “Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is – it is her shadow.”

— Ambrose Bierce

33. “Congratulations is the civility of envy.”

— Ambrose Bierce

34. “Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.”

— Ambrose Bierce

35. “Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”

— Ambrose Bierce

36. “Optimism – the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.”

— Ambrose Bierce

37. “Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.”

— Ambrose Bierce

38. “PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.”

— Ambrose Bierce

39. “Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.”

— Ambrose Bierce

40. “Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.”

— Ambrose Bierce

41. “Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.”

— Ambrose Bierce

42. “When you doubt, abstain.”

— Ambrose Bierce

43. “Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum – “I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;” as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.”

— Ambrose Bierce

44. “Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.”

— Ambrose Bierce

45. “IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

47. “Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.”

— Ambrose Bierce

48. “While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide.”

— Ambrose Bierce

49. “TRUCE, n. Friendship.”

— Ambrose Bierce

50. “Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound.”

— Ambrose Bierce