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Ambrose Bierce Inspirational Quotes (940)

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NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.
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PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
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REDEMPTION, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned . . . . whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.
Ambrose Bierce
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GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.
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When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.
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UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
Ambrose Bierce
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GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
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YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.
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LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
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OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
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BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
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PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
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There's no free will, says the philosopher To hang is most unjust. There is no free will, assents the officer We hang because we must.
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If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
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True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked Unknown, and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in honoring the memory of him of whom no memory remains to honor but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
Ambrose Bierce
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SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.
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When in Rome, do as Rome does.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
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FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
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What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
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TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.
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CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
Ambrose Bierce
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