Ambrose Bierce
A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
Ambrose BierceThe world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
Ambrose BierceRomance is the fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of things as they are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination.
Ambrose BierceIncompatibility: In matrimony, a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
Ambrose BierceEducation: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Ambrose BiercePraying is to ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose BierceLove is a temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
Ambrose BierceAcquaintance is a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor and obscure, and intimate when he is rich and famous.
Ambrose BierceThe spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.
Ambrose BierceAdvice is the smallest current coin.
Ambrose BierceValor is a soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's hope.
Ambrose BierceThe future is that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured.
Ambrose BierceA cat is a soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
Ambrose BierceMad, adj: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
Ambrose BierceA bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Ambrose BierceOptimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. ... It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
Ambrose BierceCongratulations is the civility of envy.
Ambrose BierceWhile your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands, you are safe, for you can watch both his.
Ambrose BierceSuccess is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.
Ambrose BierceLogic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Ambrose BierceExperience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
Ambrose BierceHistory is an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
Ambrose BierceWe know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.
Ambrose BierceSpeak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose BierceThere are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
Ambrose Bierce