Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Food Place Religion Service State
Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Children Cold Compassionate Feeling Love Mom
Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Age Head Himself See Thinking Wisdom
The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Country Development Engagement Existence People Strife
Fear has no brains; it is an idiot.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Brain Fear Idiot One Liner
Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Coward Emergency Himself Legs Thinking
Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Confession Law Prayer Universe Worth
Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Blessing Exception Leaving Money
Life – a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Body Decay Life Selfish
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Art Human Limitation Reason Thinking Understand
Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Country Fools Freedom Instrument Power
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Death Money Person Praise Wealth
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Analysis Delusion Himself Philosophy
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Alarm Difficult Himself Thinking
Optimism – the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Beautiful Belief Optimism Ugly
Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Breathe Conversation Listening Vocal
April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Add Fools Funny Himself Time
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

Brain Fact Himself Mindset Mysterious Nature
Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Best Gift God Man
Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Black Color Optimism White
I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Myself Reputation Thinking
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Care Civilization Government Intelligence Ourselves Reward
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 BIERCE

Age Believe Fools Hard Thinking Wisdom Young
Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Machine Technology Transformation
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Adventure Knowledge Old Sun Wisdom
Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Death End Estate Himself
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

Beautiful Death Essential Example Poison

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