Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Biercewas an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary. His vehemence as a critic, his motto "Nothing matters", and the sardonic view of human nature that informed his work, all earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth24 June 1842
CityMeighs County, OH
CountryUnited States of America
pleasure, n. The least hateful form of dejection.
A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Immoral" is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.
The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men--were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended.
True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked "Unknown," and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in "honoring the memory" of him of whom no memory remains to honor; but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
Riven and torn with cannon-shot, the trunks of the trees protruded bunches of splinters like hands, the fingers above the wound interlacing with those below.
To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
Convictions are variable; to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.
Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!
Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.
Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.
mine, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
repose, v.i. To cease from troubling.