Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

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

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.

Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.

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

Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.

Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.

A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.

MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.

Here's to woman! Would that we could fold into her arms without falling into her hands.

The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.

Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.

ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.

Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.

LIAR, n. One who tells an unpleasant truth.

REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.