Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Science Quotes, Railroads Quotes

RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.

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EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Friendship Quotes , Fool Quotes

A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain; you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.

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MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

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DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Errors Quotes , Neighbor Quotes

Idiot - A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

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PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.

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gratitude, n. A sentiment lying midway between a benefit received and a benefit expected.

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QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Beauty Quotes , Names Quotes

Immoral" is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.

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PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.

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Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.

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RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Trust Quotes , Envy Quotes

Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect — don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Hurt Quotes , Believe Quotes

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.

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DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.

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EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.

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I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Believe Quotes , People Quotes

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow.

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REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. . . . the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Change Quotes , Happiness Quotes