Ambrose Bierce (1842 – 1913)
American satirist, critic, short story writer, editor and journalist.
The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.
Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.
Monday, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
Past, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one--the knowledge and the dream.
Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
Clarionet, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet -- two clarionets.
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.
Land, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.
Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
Helpmate, n. A wife, or bitter half.
Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.