Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Country Discover Fertilization Person
Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Box Defend Democracy Stage
Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Drive Slave Substitute
Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Governement Party Prevent Rival Run
Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Avoid People Selfish
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Love Marriage Sanity Temporary
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Fake Fools History Important Rule
Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Arrangement Classification Ignorance Knowledge Small
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Affair Assurance Future Happiness Prosperity Time
Don’t steal; thou’lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Business Cheating Complete Steal Success
Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Disappointment Perspective Time
They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Animal Born Egg Loud Lying
Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Degree Independence Intellectual
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Happiness Temptation Weakness
Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Harm Patient Prescription Situation
A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Marriage People Person Support
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Community Marriage Master Mistress Slave
Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Appearance Art Color Fools White
Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
AMBROSE BIERCE

God Man One Liner Reason Sleep
True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Man Philosophy True Woman
Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Boundary Divorce Relationship
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man – who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Body Man Ocean World
To the eye of failure success is an accident.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Accident Eyes Failure Perspective Success
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

Art Charm Measurement Nature Worm
MYTHOLOGY, 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.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Belief Body History Invention Original People True
Mausoleum, n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Final Funny Rich
Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Ambition Himself Name Patriot

Famous American writers