Top 500 Ambrose Bierce Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— 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. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

411. “A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.”

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

413. “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

414. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

416. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

425. “Noise: a stench in the ear.”

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— 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. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

— Ambrose Bierce

446. “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

447. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce

449. “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

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

— Ambrose Bierce