Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.”

— Ambrose Bierce

402. “APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. “The Mad Philosopher,” 1697.”

— Ambrose Bierce

403. “There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.”

— Ambrose Bierce

404. “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

405. “An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

407. “NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning – which is a phenomenon.”

— Ambrose Bierce

408. “To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

410. “DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.”

— Ambrose Bierce

411. “HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.”

— Ambrose Bierce

412. “Least said is soon disavowed.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

414. “An army’s bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.”

— Ambrose Bierce

415. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

417. “Noise: a stench in the ear.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

419. “CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, author of ‘Cogito ergo sum’ to demonstrate the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved ‘Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum’ ‘I think that I think, therefore I think that I am’ as close an approach.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

422. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

426. “COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.”

— Ambrose Bierce

427. “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

428. “RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.”

— Ambrose Bierce

429. “Liar: A lawyer with a roving commission.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

432. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

434. “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

435. “Children who have proven themselves to be incorrigible by the age of twelve should be quickly and quietly beheaded, lest they grow to maturity, marry, and perpetuate the likeness of their being.”

— Ambrose Bierce

436. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

439. “Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth – two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.”

— Ambrose Bierce

440. “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

441. “A man is known by the company he organizes.”

— Ambrose Bierce

442. “MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.”

— Ambrose Bierce

443. “He had power only to feel, and feeling was torment.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

445. “SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones.”

— Ambrose Bierce

446. “RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.”

— Ambrose Bierce

447. “RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.”

— Ambrose Bierce

448. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

450. “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