1,237 Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

prospect, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.

Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Pertaining to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as Normal American. Most of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic. Recent additions to the White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of the Dorians. They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a brick.

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

adore, v.t. To venerate expectantly.