Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.”

— Ambrose Bierce

102. “OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.”

— Ambrose Bierce

103. “FOLLY, n. That “gift and faculty divine” whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man’s mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.”

— Ambrose Bierce

104. “Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.”

— Ambrose Bierce

105. “Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.”

— Ambrose Bierce

106. “Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.”

— Ambrose Bierce

107. “Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”

— Ambrose Bierce

108. “Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure.”

— Ambrose Bierce

109. “Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.”

— Ambrose Bierce

110. “Definition: CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.”

— Ambrose Bierce

111. “Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”

— Ambrose Bierce

112. “Economy, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.”

— Ambrose Bierce

113. “ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.”

— Ambrose Bierce

114. “Erudition – dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.”

— Ambrose Bierce

115. “PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

116. “MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart.”

— Ambrose Bierce

117. “Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.”

— Ambrose Bierce

118. “Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”

— Ambrose Bierce

119. “Liberty: One of Imagination’s most precious possessions.”

— Ambrose Bierce

120. “PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.”

— Ambrose Bierce

121. “PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.”

— Ambrose Bierce

122. “The ghost is the outward and visible signs of an inward fear.”

— Ambrose Bierce

123. “Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.”

— Ambrose Bierce

124. “Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.”

— Ambrose Bierce

125. “REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.”

— Ambrose Bierce

126. “I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection.”

— Ambrose Bierce

127. “RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.”

— Ambrose Bierce

128. “PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.”

— Ambrose Bierce

129. “Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.”

— Ambrose Bierce

130. “Custard: A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook.”

— Ambrose Bierce

131. “KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for “bliss.” It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

133. “War: A by-product of the arts of peace.”

— Ambrose Bierce

134. “MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.”

— Ambrose Bierce

135. “UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.”

— Ambrose Bierce

136. “Forgetfulness – a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.”

— Ambrose Bierce

137. “To seek a justification for a decision already made.”

— Ambrose Bierce

138. “MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.”

— Ambrose Bierce

139. “Twice – Once too often.”

— Ambrose Bierce

140. “Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.”

— Ambrose Bierce

141. “Take not God’s name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.”

— Ambrose Bierce

142. “GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.”

— Ambrose Bierce

143. “ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.”

— Ambrose Bierce

144. “Life – a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.”

— Ambrose Bierce

145. “EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.”

— Ambrose Bierce

146. “PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.”

— Ambrose Bierce

147. “INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both – as Walt Whitman’s poetry and God’s mercy to man.”

— Ambrose Bierce

148. “Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.”

— Ambrose Bierce

149. “The poor man’s price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.”

— Ambrose Bierce

150. “Insurance – an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.”

— Ambrose Bierce