Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842–1914) was an American short-story writer, and journalist. A prominent journalist in California, London, and Washington, D.C., he is celebrated for his realistic and sardonic short stories on the themes of death and horror.
Born in Meigs County, Ohio, Bierce grew up in Indiana and fought for the Union in the Civil War 1861–65. In the United Kingdom 1872–75, he wrote copy for Fun and other magazines. He relocated to California in 1887 and joined the San Francisco Examiner, later editing for San Francisco Argonaut and San Francisco Illustrated Wasp.
Bierce wrote Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1892; later In the Midst of Life, 1892.) His most famous story, ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,’ which is a haunted, near-death fantasy of escape, was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and consecutively influenced Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway.
In 1896, Bierce moved to Washington, D.C., where he continued writing for newspapers and magazines. He compiled the much-quoted volume of ironic and bitter definitions Cynic’s Word Book (1906; now called The Devil’s Dictionary.) In 1913, he went to Mexico to report on revolutionary Pancho Villa’s army and disappeared without explanation.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ambrose Bierce
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.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Property
Wit. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Humor, Wit
Prophecy: The art and practice of selling one’s credibility for future delivery.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Prophecy
Philanthropist. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Charity
Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to suppress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Censorship
Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Prayer
The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Marriage
Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Mothers
Opportunity is a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Disappointment
Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
—Ambrose Bierce
Learning: The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Learning
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Logic, Thinking
Perseverance – a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Persistence, Perseverance
Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Enthusiasm
Don’t steal; thou it never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Business
When in Rome, do as Rome does.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Cities, City Life
MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign’s hostility.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Diplomacy
Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Politics
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Youth, Experience
Bore: a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Bores, Boredom
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Saints, Perspective
Aristocrats: Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts-guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Class
QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
—Ambrose Bierce
Genealogy: An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Family, Ancestors, Ancestry
Backbite: To “speak of a man as you find him” when he can’t find you.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Insults, Slander
Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
—Ambrose Bierce
Peace, in international affairs, is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Peace, Cheating
Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Youth, Childhood
Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth – two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Childhood
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
Topics: Food, Perspective, Eating
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