Ambrose Bierce Quotes | GloryQuotes

Ambrose Bierce Quotes About Women

Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.

Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.

Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead.

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.

Ambrose Bierce Quotes About Life

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

More Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.

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

It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.

Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.

Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.

Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

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

Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.

Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.

Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.

Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.

Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.

Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.

Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.

Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.

Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

Browse 158 quotes attributed to Ambrose Bierce, listed in the source data as a American Journalist, organized around themes such as Women, Life, Spiritual. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.