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History is 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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Ambrose Bierce
Born: 1842
Born: June 24
Aphorist
Journalist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Meigs County
Ohio
Dod Grile
William Herman
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Culture
Soldier
Unimportant
False
Rulers
Accounts
Soldiers
Brought
Historian
Fool
Fools
Events
Propaganda
Lying
Account
History
Mostly
Knaves

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.
Ambrose Bierce
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Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
Ambrose Bierce
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KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a crowned head, although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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Evolutionary biology is genuinely scientific, but more than that it opens the door to a world more marvellous than any Christian fundamentalist has ever read into the pages of the Bible.
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.
Ambrose Bierce
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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
Ambrose Bierce
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You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
Ambrose Bierce
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SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.
Ambrose Bierce
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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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PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.
Ambrose Bierce
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ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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To seek a justification for a decision already made.
Ambrose Bierce
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Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command
Ambrose Bierce
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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce
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Condole - to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
Ambrose Bierce
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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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WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
Ambrose Bierce