Citations de Ambrose Bierce

16 citations    

BIRTH: The first and dirtiest of all disasters.
 
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. 
 
FIDELITY: A virtue particular to those about to be betrayed.
 
SWEATER: A garment worn by child when it's mother is feeling chilly.
 
DESTINY: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
 
ZEAL: A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced.
 
ADMIRATION: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
 
Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
 
PEACE: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
 
CYNIC: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
 
CORPORATION: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
 
IDIOT: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
 
CHRISTIAN: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbors.
 
CONSERVATIVE: A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
 
BOUNDARY: In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.
 
PAIN: An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.
 
16 citations