He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.
AMBROSE BIERCEReligion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
More Ambrose Bierce Quotes
-
-
ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
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 -
Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
REFLECTION,n: An Action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
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 -
Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man – who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.
AMBROSE BIERCE -
Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
AMBROSE BIERCE