1,237 Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Dance, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.

What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.

FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.

REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.

To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.

Kiss. n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss".