Quote

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

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
Upon
Lair
Heart
Ferocious
Every
Provoke
Men
Provoking
Beast
Greatest
Animal

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Image
A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Noise: a stench in the ear.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
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
CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Gout, a physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings the inspired Ode.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances . . . the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
I think love is the most unbelievable, and critical, thing in civilization. Everything else is very mechanical and predictable, but love, you can't catch it.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument as, He presided at the piccolo.
Ambrose Bierce
Image
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
Ambrose Bierce