It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce

Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.
Ambrose Bierce

Doubt is the father of invention.
Ambrose Bierce

Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.
Ambrose Bierce

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce

Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
Ambrose Bierce

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one of the curses of London.
Ambrose Bierce

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
Ambrose Bierce

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
Ambrose Bierce

The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
Ambrose Bierce

There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
Ambrose Bierce

Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
Ambrose Bierce

Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
Ambrose Bierce

Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
Ambrose Bierce

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce

An egotist is a person of low taste – more interested in himself than in me.
Ambrose Bierce

Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
Ambrose Bierce

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
Ambrose Bierce

To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one’s voice.
Ambrose Bierce

A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
Ambrose Bierce

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
Ambrose Bierce

Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
Ambrose Bierce

Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
Ambrose Bierce

Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron – namely, that he is a blockhead.
Ambrose Bierce

Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one’s bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
Ambrose Bierce

Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Ambrose Bierce