Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

Immigrant: An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.

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

BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

San Francisco is the place where most people were last seen

Consult, v.t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on. Contempt, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

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

Miss, n. A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh.

PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

Dictionary, n. A malevolent literacy device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic.

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

Reality, n. The dream of a mad philosopher.

Epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

Achievement is the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

Connoisseur, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

This is only a record of broken and apparently unrelated memories, some of them as distinct and sequent as brilliant beads upon a thread, others remote and strange, having the character of crimson dreams with interspaces blank and black -- witch-fires glowing still and red in a great desolation.

It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble.

Age - That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.

AMATEUR, n. A public nuisance who mistakes taste for skill, and confounds his ambition with his ability.

RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

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

An ambassador is a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given an office by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

Grammar, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet of the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

MidÅ'n egy napon gyermeki duzzogásomban meggondolatlanul letéptem kishúgom fülét, anyám korholó szava - Meglepsz, fiam! - annyira szíven ütött, hogy egész éjszaka sírva, álmatlanul hánykolódtam ágyamban, majd anyám lábához vetettem magam, s így kértem bocsánatát: - Ne haragudj, édesanyám, hogy meglepetést okoztam neked!

Ugyanis írogatok olykor egy-egy elbeszélést. - Olykor elolvasok egyet-egyet. - Köszönöm. - Elbeszéléseket általában, nem az önét.