Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Biercewas an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary. His vehemence as a critic, his motto "Nothing matters", and the sardonic view of human nature that informed his work, all earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 June 1842
CityMeighs County, OH
CountryUnited States of America
Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound.
When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.
What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.
When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.
FRYING-PAN, n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution, a woman's kitchen. The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith.