Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “Prejudice – a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.”

— Ambrose Bierce

302. “Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.”

— Ambrose Bierce

303. “CLOCK, n. A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.”

— Ambrose Bierce

304. “A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa.”

— Ambrose Bierce

305. “Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.”

— Ambrose Bierce

306. “BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.”

— Ambrose Bierce

307. “Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.”

— Ambrose Bierce

308. “We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization.”

— Ambrose Bierce

309. “JOSS-STICKS- Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.”

— Ambrose Bierce

310. “CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.”

— Ambrose Bierce

311. “Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.”

— Ambrose Bierce

312. “MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.”

— Ambrose Bierce

313. “To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one’s voice.”

— Ambrose Bierce

314. “In the presence of death reason and philosophy are silent.”

— Ambrose Bierce

315. “The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two.”

— Ambrose Bierce

316. “IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.”

— Ambrose Bierce

317. “FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of a cat.”

— Ambrose Bierce

318. “Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

320. “An Italian proverb says: “The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.”

— Ambrose Bierce

321. “NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.”

— Ambrose Bierce

322. “MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.”

— Ambrose Bierce

323. “Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.”

— Ambrose Bierce

324. “VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.”

— Ambrose Bierce

325. “BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.”

— Ambrose Bierce

326. “Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.”

— Ambrose Bierce

327. “DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician’s forecast of disease by the patient’s pulse and purse.”

— Ambrose Bierce

328. “Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.”

— Ambrose Bierce

329. “ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.”

— Ambrose Bierce

330. “POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.”

— Ambrose Bierce

331. “To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.”

— Ambrose Bierce

332. “YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.”

— Ambrose Bierce

333. “Nature’s fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.”

— Ambrose Bierce

334. “Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.”

— Ambrose Bierce

335. “Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

336. “PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.”

— Ambrose Bierce

337. “A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.”

— Ambrose Bierce

338. “A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.”

— Ambrose Bierce

339. “LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers – particularly to those who love not wisely but other men’s wives.”

— Ambrose Bierce

340. “I think love is the most unbelievable, and critical, thing in civilization. Everything else is very mechanical and predictable, but love, you can’t catch it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

341. “Condole – to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.”

— Ambrose Bierce

342. “PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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343. “OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.”

— Ambrose Bierce

344. “OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground.”

— Ambrose Bierce

345. “Homo Creator’s testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.”

— Ambrose Bierce

346. “UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.”

— Ambrose Bierce

347. “Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.”

— Ambrose Bierce

348. “A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.”

— Ambrose Bierce

349. “POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.”

— Ambrose Bierce

350. “Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.”

— Ambrose Bierce