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
Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.
DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.
Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.
COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.
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.
PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.