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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Goethe, Johann von • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • James, William • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Watterson, Bill • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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- 18-Jan-21 - "The Christian Way of Life in Human Relations," speech, General Assembly fo the National Council of Churches, St Louis (4 Dec 1957) | WIST on Letter from Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963).
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- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Republic, Book 1, 347c.
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- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907).
Quotations by Bierce, Ambrose
The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men — were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended.
There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don’t know.
The covers of this book are too far apart.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
(Attributed)
One-sentence book review. First attributed to Bierce in 1923, but showing up in anonymous humor as early as 1899. See here for more information.
The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
If public opinion were determined by a throw of the dice, it would in the long run be half the time right.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
Grief and discomfiture are coals that cool:
Why keep them glowing with thy sighs, poor fool?Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
“There’s no free will,” says the philosopher;
“To hang is most unjust.”
“There is no free will,” assents the officer;
“We hang because we must.”Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
A slight is less easily forgiven than an injury, because it implies something of contempt, indifference, an overlooking of our importance; whereas an injury presupposes some degree of consideration. “The black-guards!” said a traveler whom Sicilian brigands had released without ransom; “did they think me a person of no consequence?”
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
In childhood we expect, in youth demand, in manhood hope, and in age beseech.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
To parents only, death brings an inconsolable sorrow. When the young die and the old live, nature’s machinery is working with the friction that we name grief.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. 8, “Epigrams” (1911)
Full text.
BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think.
ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A Total Abstainer is one who abstains from everything, but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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.
Apologize, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offense.
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
ADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.
BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you don’t entertain.
BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
CHRISTIAN, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them others.
CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things the way they are, and not as they ought to be.
DEBAUCHEE, n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.
DESTINY, n. A tyrant’s authority for crime, and a fool’s excuse for failure.
DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one’s life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.
DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.
DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.
EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
FAMOUS, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
IMPIETY, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.
BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.
SAINT, n. A dead sinner, revised and edited.
RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
MISFORTUNE, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.
PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.
PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
PREDICAMENT, n. The wage of consistency.
PREJUDICE, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.
RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
RASH, adj. Insensible to the value of our advice.
RECONSIDER, v. To seek a justification for a decision already made.
REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
RESOLUTE, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.
REVERENCE, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.
RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one’s self and to nobody else.
SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.