Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

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, and Voltaire. His war stories influenced Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway and others, and he was considered an influential and feared literary critic. In recent decades, Bierce has gained wider respect as a fabulist and poet.

Quotes

Saint, noun. A dead sinner revised and edited.
Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Happiness, noun. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
History, n. An account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets.
Optimist, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Opera, n. A play representing life in another world whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures, and no postures but attitudes.
Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.
Experience, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- I think I think, therefore, I think I am.
Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Optimism, n. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
Lawyer, n. One skilled in the circumvention of the law.
Phonograph, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
Every time Europe looks across the Atlantic to see the American eagle, it observes only the rear end of an ostrich.

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