Quote

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

Ambrose Bierce

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Like
Makes
Convinced
Certain
Inspiring
Agains
Persons
Bears
Enlisting
Person
Failure
Enlist
Firsts
Arms
Ranks
First
Doubt
Doubts
Would
Enemy
Enemies
Men
Success
Bear

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, author of 'Cogito ergo sum' to demonstrate the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved 'Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum' 'I think that I think, therefore I think that I am' as close an approach.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
NOVEL, n. A short story padded.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts - guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession it meant own, and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper . . . the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is, instead of as it should be.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
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
Image
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