Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
Ambrose Bierce

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Ambrose Bierce

War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.
Ambrose Bierce

Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce

Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
Ambrose Bierce

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
Ambrose Bierce

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Ambrose Bierce

Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.
Ambrose Bierce

Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth – two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
Ambrose Bierce

Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.
Ambrose Bierce

Life – a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
Ambrose Bierce

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce

Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Ambrose Bierce

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

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Ambrose Bierce

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Ambrose Bierce

When you doubt, abstain.
Ambrose Bierce

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
Ambrose Bierce

Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
Ambrose Bierce

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
Ambrose Bierce

Consul – in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
Ambrose Bierce

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
Ambrose Bierce

Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
Ambrose Bierce

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
Ambrose Bierce

Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
Ambrose Bierce