Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

A guerra é a forma de Deus en­si­nar ge­o­grafia aos ame­ri­ca­nos.

The tendency to lie is one thing; lying is another.

AUTHENTIC, adj. Indubitably true — in somebody's opinion.

The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave and blind as a stone.

In many instances nothing marked the spot where lay the vestiges of some poor mortal-who, leaving a large circle of sorrowing friends, had been left by them in turn-except a depression in the earth, more lasting than that in the spirits of the mourners.

LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.

ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

Over all was that air of abandonment and decay which seems nowhere so fit and significant as in a village of the forgotten dead.

HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.

ALCOHOL, n. (Arabic al kohl, a paint for the eyes.) The essential principle of all.

MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one's opponents in baffling one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.

MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

SOUL, n. A spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave disputation. Plato held that those souls which in a previous state of existence (antedating Athens) had obtained the clearest glimpses of eternal truth entered into the bodies of persons who became philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls that had least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and despots.

MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.

ME, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.

MERCHANT, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

Consultar, v.l. Requerir la aprobación de otro para tomar una actitud ya resuelta.

In Bacon we see the culminating prime Of British intellect and British crime.

MISS, n. The title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Missis (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.

MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.

OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong.

ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

PANTHEISM, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.