Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

408. “Income is the natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

410. “Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.”

— Ambrose Bierce

411. “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

412. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

415. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

417. “Least said is soon disavowed.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

422. “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

423. “Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.”

— Ambrose Bierce

424. “Noise: a stench in the ear.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— 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. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

433. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

436. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

438. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

440. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

444. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

448. “QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman’s name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.”

— Ambrose Bierce

449. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce