Ambrose Bierce

Bekannte Zitate von Ambrose Bierce

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.

Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.

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

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

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.

We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

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

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

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

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

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

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

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

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.

Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.

Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

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

Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

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

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Edible, adj.: 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.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.

Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.

Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

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.