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Absence
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Woman absent is woman dead.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Abstinence
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Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Absurdity
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Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Advice
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Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Age
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Age. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Ambition
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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Ancestry, Ancestors
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Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Anger
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Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Architecture
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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Atheism
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Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Authors & Writing
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Let me tell you what a writer is. A writer takes comprehensive views, holds large convictions, makes wide generalizations. A writer's not English, Mexican, or American. A writer's not a woman nor a man. A writer's not Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, nor snake worshipper. To local standards of right and wrong a writer's civilly indifferent. In the virtues, a writer's concerned only with general expediency. A writer doesn't waste time focusing on fixed moral principles that aren't yet before the court of conscience. Happiness discloses itself to a writer as the end and purpose of life, and art and love are the only means to a writer's happiness. A writer is free of all doctrines, theories, etiquettes, and politics. To a writer, a continent doesn't seem long, nor a century wide. And a writer has ever present consciousness that this is a world of...fools and rogues, blind with superstition, tormented with envy, consumed with vanity, selfish, false, cruel, cursed with illusions, and frothing mad.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Beauty
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Beauty. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Boredom
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Bore -- a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Business
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Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Don't steal; thou it never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Censorship
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Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, 1967
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Certainty
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To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Charity
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Philanthropist. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
-Ambrose Bierce
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City Life, Cities
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When in Rome, do as Rome does.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Community
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Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Compromise
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Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Congress
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The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Conservatism
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Conservative. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Cowardice/Weakness
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A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Credit
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Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Crime
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Abscond. To move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Criticism
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The covers of this book are too far apart.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Cynicism
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A cynic is a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, and not as they ought to be.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Debt / Borrow / Loan
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Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Diplomacy
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Consul. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Divorce
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Divorce. A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Doctors
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Physician -- One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Dogs
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Dog. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Drugs
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Opiate. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Duty
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Duty. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Education
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Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Ego
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Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
-Ambrose Bierce
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An egotist is a person interested in himself than in me!
-Ambrose Bierce
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Enthusiasm
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Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Experience
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Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Fate & Destiny
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Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Food
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Edible. Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Forgiveness
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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Fortune
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An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Friends
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Acquaintance: a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
-Ambrose Bierce
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An acquaintance is someone we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Funerals
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A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Future, The
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Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil
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Gambling (Gaming)
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The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Gossip
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Confidante. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Habits
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Habit is a shackle for the free.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Happiness
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Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.
-Ambrose Bierce
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History
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An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Historian. A broad -- gauge gossip.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Humor
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Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Wit. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Identity
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Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. If we must have them, let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to MH.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Immigration
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Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Insults
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Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Insurance
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Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Justice
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Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Knowledge
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Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Laughter
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Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Laziness
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Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Learning
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Learning. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Life
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Life. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Logic
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Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Love
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A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Management
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A man is known by the company he organizes.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Manners
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Politeness -- The most acceptable hypocrisy.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Marriage
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Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
-Ambrose Bierce
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Marriage. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Fidelity. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Bride. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Medicine
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Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Military, the
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Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Neutrality
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Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Oceans
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A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man, who has no gills.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Optimism
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Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
-Ambrose Bierce
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An optimist is a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Patience
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Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
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Patriotism
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Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Peace
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Peace, in international affairs, is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Persistence
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A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves a glorious success.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Philosophy
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A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
-Ambrose Bierce
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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Planning
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To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Politics
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What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Praise
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Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Admiration; is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Prayer
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Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Prejudice
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A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Bigot, one who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Profanity, Swearing, Vulgarity
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Take not God's name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Prophecy
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
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Quotations
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The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Reflection
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Deliberation. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Religion
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Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Respect
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Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Revolution
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Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Saint, Saints
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Saint. A dead sinner revised and edited.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Scholars, Scholarship
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Erudition. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Success & Failure
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Success is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Thought
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Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Trouble, Troubles
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Truth
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Truth -- An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Vanity
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They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
-Ambrose Bierce
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War
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Projectile - n. the final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were resolved by physical contact of the disputants with such arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times would supply - sword, spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by all. Its capital defect ( in Bierce's day ) has been that it requires personal attendance at the point of launch.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Witches
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As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Youth
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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
-Ambrose Bierce
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Books by and about Ambrose Bierce
