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
OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.
REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
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.
PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
To seek a justification for a decision already made.
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.
The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.
Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Edible - good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.