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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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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
Heaven
Lying
Afterward
Time
Infancy
World
Begins
Soon
Childhood
Lies
Pretty

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: O fudge!
Ambrose Bierce
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YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.
Ambrose Bierce
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Quill: An instrument of torture yielded by a goose and commonly weilded by as ass.
Ambrose Bierce
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me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.
Ambrose Bierce
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As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
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The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.
Ambrose Bierce
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We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
Ambrose Bierce
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Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.
Ambrose Bierce
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CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.
Ambrose Bierce
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PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
Ambrose Bierce
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self-esteem, n. An erroneous appraisal.
Ambrose Bierce
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EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce
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ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity
Ambrose Bierce
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POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
Ambrose Bierce
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
Ambrose Bierce