To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Author
Ambrose Bierce
101 quotations
About Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American author, journalist, and poet. A prolific and versatile writer, Bierce was regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States and as a pioneering writer of realist fiction. For his horror writing, Michael Dirda ranked him alongside Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. S. T. Joshi speculates that "he may well be the greatest satirist America has ever produced, and in this regard can take his place with such figures as Juvenal, Swift, a…
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by Ambrose BierceConsul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
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Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.