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
Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Happiness
Pray. To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Prayer
Aristocrats: Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts-guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Class
Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Medicine
Erudition: Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
—Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Patriotism
Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone and as irrational as a headless hen.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Patriotism
Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Childhood, Youth
DIPLOMACY, n. Lying in state, or the patriotic art of lying for one’s country.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Diplomacy
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
Admiration is our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Praise, Admiration
Genealogy: An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Ancestors, Ancestry, Family
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Intelligence
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Future, The Future
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
Age. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Age, Aging
Deliberation. The act of examining one’s bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Reflection
Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a “joke.”
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Humor, Jokes
Genius – To know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
—Ambrose Bierce
Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. If we must have them, let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to MH.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Identity, Names
Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Marriage
Quotation, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Quotations
HYPOCRITE, n. One who, profession virtues that he does not respect secures the advantage of seeming to be what he depises
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Hypocrisy
Academy: A modern school where football is taught.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Sports, Football
Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Impartiality
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him. “Pauillac, 1873,” he murmured and died.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Wine
Architect: One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Science, Architecture
Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
—Ambrose Bierce
Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Experience
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Praise
Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Patience
As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
—Ambrose Bierce
When in Rome, do as Rome does.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Cities, City Life
Destiny: A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Excuses, Destiny, Fate
Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
—Ambrose Bierce
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: Eating
Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Divorce
Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Justice, Lawyers
History is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
—Ambrose Bierce
Topics: Historians, History
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
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