Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.

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

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.

ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.

FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.

True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman.

What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.

Strive not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style.

Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man. The pig is taught by sermons and epistles / To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.

A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.

Male, A member of the unconsidered or negligible gender. The male of the human race is commonly known to the female as Mere Man. The Genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden.

Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.

An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.

IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.

No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.

ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

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

Philanthropist: a rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.