Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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.
Ambrose Bierce
Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
Ambrose Bierce
An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
Ambrose Bierce
Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.
Ambrose Bierce
Take not God's name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.
Ambrose Bierce
The covers of this book are too far apart.
Ambrose Bierce
Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
Ambrose Bierce
Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
Ambrose Bierce
Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce
What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
Ambrose Bierce
CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the disgrace before meat.
Ambrose Bierce
Acquaintance: a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
Ambrose Bierce
Friendship Quotes
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.