Quotes from Ambrose Bierce

Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect behind her.

Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.

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

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: [from academe] A modern school where football is taught.

Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.

Scriptures: the sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day.

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

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

Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.

Property, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.

Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.

Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

Noise: a stench in the ear.

Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.

Marriage, n. a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.