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 BIERCEMYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
More Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
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IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
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Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.
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Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
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Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
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ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
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Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
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Mausoleum, n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
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Life – a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
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Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
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Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
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In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
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There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know.
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Scriptures – The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
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The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.
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Forgetfulness – a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
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Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.
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To the eye of failure success is an accident.
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Consul – in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
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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.
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Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
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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.
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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
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Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
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