Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.”

— Ambrose Bierce

52. “Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.”

— Ambrose Bierce

53. “You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.”

— Ambrose Bierce

54. “What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.”

— Ambrose Bierce

55. “TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.”

— Ambrose Bierce

56. “Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.”

— Ambrose Bierce

57. “RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

59. “Good-bye – if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

61. “Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

64. “Lawyer – One skilled in the circumvention of the law.”

— Ambrose Bierce

65. “A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can’t let go.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

67. “The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.”

— Ambrose Bierce

68. “Empty wine bottles have a bad opinion of women.”

— Ambrose Bierce

69. “Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.”

— Ambrose Bierce

70. “When in Rome, do as Rome does.”

— Ambrose Bierce

71. “Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure.”

— Ambrose Bierce

72. “Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box.”

— Ambrose Bierce

73. “Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

75. “At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

77. “An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.”

— Ambrose Bierce

78. “Genius – to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

80. “Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.”

— Ambrose Bierce

81. “Irreligion – the principal one of the great faiths of the world.”

— Ambrose Bierce

82. “A revolution is a violent change of mismanagement.”

— Ambrose Bierce

83. “LIAR, n. One who tells an unpleasant truth.”

— Ambrose Bierce

84. “Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.”

— Ambrose Bierce

85. “PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.”

— Ambrose Bierce

86. “MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.”

— Ambrose Bierce

87. “God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.”

— Ambrose Bierce

88. “He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.”

— Ambrose Bierce

89. “One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.”

— Ambrose Bierce

90. “A rabbit’s foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.”

— Ambrose Bierce

91. “Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.”

— Ambrose Bierce

92. “Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.”

— Ambrose Bierce

93. “Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.”

— Ambrose Bierce

94. “Achievement; the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.”

— Ambrose Bierce

95. “Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

96. “Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

97. “HASH: There is no definition for this word – nobody knows what hash is.”

— Ambrose Bierce

98. “The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.”

— Ambrose Bierce

99. “International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one.”

— Ambrose Bierce

100. “REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.”

— Ambrose Bierce