111 Quotes By Ambrose Bierce


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.
Ambrose Bierce on age

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

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce on anger

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

Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
Ambrose Bierce on art

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Ambrose Bierce on art

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 on art

We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Ambrose Bierce on attitude

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

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

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce on best

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

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce on business

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

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

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

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
Ambrose Bierce on death

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

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
Ambrose Bierce on education

Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
Ambrose Bierce on experience