A man is known by the company he organizes.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

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

Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

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

Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

Patience - a minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

The future is that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
- Ambrose Bierce Quote

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

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

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