Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.

Mammals: a family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.

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

Mammon, n.: The god of the world's leading religion.

Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

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

Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.

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

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

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.

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.

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

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.

Historian: A broad-gauge gossip.

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.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

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

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

Advice, n. the smallest current coin.

Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think.

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

Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.

Achievement, n. the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

To men a man is but a mind. Who caresWhat face he carries or what form he wears?But woman's body is the woman. OStay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go.