Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

CONSULT, v.i. To seek another's disapproval of a course already decided on.

In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.

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.

CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.

Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

Good-bye — if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico — ah, that is euthanasia.

A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.

AMERICANISM, n. 1) The desire to purge America of all those qualities which make it a more or less tolerable place in which to live; 2) The ability to simultaneously kiss ass, follow your boss's orders, swallow a pay cut, piss in a bottle, cower in fear of job loss, and brag about your freedom.

On this night I had searched for them without success, fearing to find them; they were nowhere in the house, nor about the moonlit dawn. For, although the sun is lost to us for ever, the moon, full-orbed or slender, remains to us. Sometimes it shines by night, sometimes by day, but always it rises and sets, as in that other life.

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.

Enthusiasm, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

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

O God! what a thing it is to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an altered world, a prey to apprehension and despair!

Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the world in which you live!

Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him.

Beware of the compound adjective, beloved of the tyro and the 'poetess'.

The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forbearance among men.

Aphorism, n. Predigested wisdom.

PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.

Positive, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

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

I can give you my word of honor. And pray what may be the value of that? inquired the amused Regent. Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold.

The man was Halpin Frayser.  He lived in St. Helena, but where he lives now is uncertain, for he is dead. 

You scoundrel, you have wronged me, hissed the philosopher, May you live forever!