Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.”

— Ambrose Bierce

202. “Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.”

— Ambrose Bierce

203. “The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.”

— Ambrose Bierce

204. “ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.”

— Ambrose Bierce

205. “Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.”

— Ambrose Bierce

206. “REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.”

— Ambrose Bierce

207. “REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.”

— Ambrose Bierce

208. “REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.”

— Ambrose Bierce

209. “I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.”

— Ambrose Bierce

210. “Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered.”

— Ambrose Bierce

211. “When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.”

— Ambrose Bierce

212. “REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.”

— Ambrose Bierce

213. “PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one’s credibility for future delivery.”

— Ambrose Bierce

214. “MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.”

— Ambrose Bierce

215. “The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.”

— Ambrose Bierce

216. “OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one’s environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.”

— Ambrose Bierce

217. “From childhood to youth is eternity, from youth to manhood, a season. Age comes in a night and is incredible.”

— Ambrose Bierce

218. “IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.”

— Ambrose Bierce

219. “An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.”

— Ambrose Bierce

220. “In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

221. “CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance – against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.”

— Ambrose Bierce

222. “Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.”

— Ambrose Bierce

223. “When God makes a beautiful woman, the devil opens a new register.”

— Ambrose Bierce

224. “An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.”

— Ambrose Bierce

225. “MUMMY, n. – an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.”

— Ambrose Bierce

226. “POSITIVISM- A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.”

— Ambrose Bierce

227. “Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire.”

— Ambrose Bierce

228. “Let the red dawn surmise What we shall do, When this blue starlight dies And all is through.”

— Ambrose Bierce

229. “Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.”

— Ambrose Bierce

230. “CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”

— Ambrose Bierce

231. “Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo.”

— Ambrose Bierce

232. “Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.”

— Ambrose Bierce

233. “Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.”

— Ambrose Bierce

234. “Inexpedient: Not calculated to advance one’s interests.”

— Ambrose Bierce

235. “Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.”

— Ambrose Bierce

236. “REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.”

— Ambrose Bierce

237. “Here’s to woman! Would that we could fold into her arms without falling into her hands.”

— Ambrose Bierce

238. “MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.”

— Ambrose Bierce

239. “PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection between a disability and a frost.”

— Ambrose Bierce

240. “A king’s staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.”

— Ambrose Bierce

241. “Hash, x. There is no definition for this word – nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.”

— Ambrose Bierce

242. “A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.”

— Ambrose Bierce

243. “A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.”

— Ambrose Bierce

244. “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

245. “History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.”

— Ambrose Bierce

246. “SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar “tumble-bug.” It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

247. “When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.”

— Ambrose Bierce

248. “PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.”

— Ambrose Bierce

249. “Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.”

— Ambrose Bierce

250. “Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.”

— Ambrose Bierce