American author (1842-1914)
Civilization does not, I think, make the race any better. It makes men know more: and if knowledge makes them happy it is useful and desirable. The one purpose of every sane human being is to be happy. No one can have any other motive than that. There is no such thing as unselfishness. We perform the most "generous" and "self-sacrificing" acts because we should be unhappy if we did not. We move on lines of least reluctance. Whatever tends to increase the beggarly sum of human happiness is worth having; nothing else has any value.
AMBROSE BIERCE
A Cynic Looks at Life
Men who expect universal peace through invention of destructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who, noting the improvement of agricultural implements, should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
For nearly all that is good in our American civilization we are indebted to the Old World; the errors and mischiefs are of our own creation.
AMBROSE BIERCE
A Cynic Looks at Life
Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave and blind as a stone.
AMBROSE BIERCE
A Cynic Looks at Life
What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions; where it can get a foothold it makes a stand; where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"The Night-Doings at Deadman's"
Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
When the young die and the old live, nature's machinery is working with the friction that we name grief.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
Peace, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
SAINT, n. A dead sinner, revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything. The master of the art accomplishes the formidable task of discrimination.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"