Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker.

APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider

PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.

Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.

DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs

MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.

RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.

OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.

Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

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

Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.