Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.”

— Ambrose Bierce

402. “WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.”

— Ambrose Bierce

403. “Appetite, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.”

— Ambrose Bierce

404. “The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.”

— Ambrose Bierce

405. “Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.”

— Ambrose Bierce

406. “FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar’s nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.”

— Ambrose Bierce

407. “QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.”

— Ambrose Bierce

408. “Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.”

— Ambrose Bierce

409. “Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.”

— Ambrose Bierce

410. “Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

411. “BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker.”

— Ambrose Bierce

412. “Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.”

— Ambrose Bierce

413. “AMATEUR, n. A public nuisance who mistakes taste for skill, and confounds his ambition with his ability.”

— Ambrose Bierce

414. “Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.”

— Ambrose Bierce

415. “ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.”

— Ambrose Bierce

416. “OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.”

— Ambrose Bierce

417. “Historian – a broad-gauge gossip.”

— Ambrose Bierce

418. “Botany, n. The science of vegetables – those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.”

— Ambrose Bierce

419. “DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.”

— Ambrose Bierce

420. “Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.”

— Ambrose Bierce

421. “HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.”

— Ambrose Bierce

422. “RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.”

— Ambrose Bierce

423. “TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.”

— Ambrose Bierce

424. “RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience.”

— Ambrose Bierce

425. “The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.”

— Ambrose Bierce

426. “COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.”

— Ambrose Bierce

427. “Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one’s bread to determine which side it is buttered on.”

— Ambrose Bierce

428. “An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings the inspired Ode.”

— Ambrose Bierce

429. “Kiss. n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for “bliss”.”

— Ambrose Bierce

430. “Least said is soon disavowed.”

— Ambrose Bierce

431. “NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.”

— Ambrose Bierce

432. “MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.”

— Ambrose Bierce

433. “The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forebearance among men.”

— Ambrose Bierce

434. “Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.”

— Ambrose Bierce

435. “GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.”

— Ambrose Bierce

436. “LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods.”

— Ambrose Bierce

437. “Noise: a stench in the ear.”

— Ambrose Bierce

438. “Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.”

— Ambrose Bierce

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

439. “WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.”

— Ambrose Bierce

440. “Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.”

— Ambrose Bierce

441. “GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.”

— Ambrose Bierce

442. “INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.”

— Ambrose Bierce

443. “CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.”

— Ambrose Bierce

444. “NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one’s competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.”

— Ambrose Bierce

445. “While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands, you are safe, for you can watch both his.”

— Ambrose Bierce

446. “Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.”

— Ambrose Bierce

447. “SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death.”

— Ambrose Bierce

448. “PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

449. “It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.”

— Ambrose Bierce

450. “PICKANINNY, n. The young of the “Procyanthropos”, or “Americanus dominans”. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.”

— Ambrose Bierce