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
Acquaintance: "A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.
April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
To seek a justification for a decision already made.
Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second. This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.
Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else