Quote

IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.

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
Wrong
Wicked
Whatever
Instance
Comes
Considered
Running
Generally
Find
Regard
Long
Number
Inexpedient
Men
Numbers
Instances
Greater
Immoral

More quotes by 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
NOVEL, n. A short story padded.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Potable, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Fear has no brains it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.
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
PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. . . . not be confused with that of foreordination. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Aristocrats: n. fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts - guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace, attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than reductus in pulvis.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
pleasure, n. The least hateful form of dejection.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.
Ambrose Bierce