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Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

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
Substitutes
Ties
Chains
Debtors
Debt
Whip
Financial
Whips
Ingenious
Substitute
Chain

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DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
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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.
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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.
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An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.
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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
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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
Ambrose Bierce
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NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.
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Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.
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The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.
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Twice – Once too often.
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The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.
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CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.
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PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.
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Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.
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A penny saved is a penny to squander.
Ambrose Bierce
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If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
Ambrose Bierce
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I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.
Ambrose Bierce
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PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
Ambrose Bierce
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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Bierce