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Quote by Ambrose Bierce

Work

The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

This book is a compilation of witty and often irreverent definitions, challenging conventional meanings and offering a critical commentary on society and human nature. It is a work of literary wit and social critique, celebrated for its clever wordplay and sharp observations. more

Author

Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce was an American journalist, satirist, and editor, renowned for his sharp wit and dark humor. He is best known for his satirical novel 'The Devil's Dictionary' and his short stories. Bierce was born on June 24, 1842, and his exact date of death remains unknown, as he disappeared during the American Civil War. more

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“It is not the conscience which raises a blush, for a man may sincerely regret some slight fault committed in solitude, or he may suffer the deepest remorse for an undetected crime, but he will not blush... It is not the sense of guilt, but the thought that others think or know us to be guilty which crimsons the face.”

“It is well-known that those who have charge of young infants, that it is difficult to feel sure when certain movements about their mouths are really expressive; that is when they really smile. Hence I carefully watched my own infants. One of them at the age of forty-five days, and being in a happy frame of mind, smiled... I observed the same thing on the following day: but on the third day the child was not quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and this renders it probable that the previous smiles were real.”

“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.”

“The teens are emotionally unstable and pathic. It is a natural impulse to experience hot and perfervid psychic states, and it is characterized by emotionalism. We see here the instability and fluctuations now so characteristic. The emotions develop by contrast and reaction into the opposite.”