Book detail: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated) is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
The Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated) is a comprehensive compilation of the author's writings, featuring his most famous works such as 'The Cask of Amontillado' and 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.' The illustrated format enhances the reader's experience with visual elements that complement Bierce's distinctive narrative voice.
The quotes below use the same card format as the rest of the site, including topics, source notes, copy actions, image creation, and sharing controls.
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“The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“The covers of this book are too far apart.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Scriptures - The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Contempt; the feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Hail, high Excess especially in wine,
To thee in worship do I bend the knee
Who preach abstemiousness unto me
My skull thy pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.
Precept on precept, aye, and line on line,
Could ne'er persuade so sweetly to agree
With reason as thy touch, exact and free,
Upon my forehead and along my spine.
At thy command eschewing pleasure's cup,
With the hot grape I warm no more my wit;
When on thy stool of penitence I sit
I'm quite converted, for I can't get up.
Ungrateful he who afterward would falter
To make new sacrifices at thine altar!”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Economy, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made; . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread "per capita" of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“ROMANCE, n. 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 . . .”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's whole life long.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific-and without science we are as the snakes and toads.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as... the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
“ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)