Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

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

The hardest tumble a man can take is to fall over his own bluff.

Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

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

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

Prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

Impiety, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.

MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.

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

Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.

NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.

Friendship: A ship big enough for two in fair weather, but only one in foul.

Twice – Once too often.

Idiot - A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but pervades and regulates the whole. He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.

Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

Peace: A period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.

Alliance - In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.