Ambrose Bierce: The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 / Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales

When exchange of identities is possible, be careful; you may choose a person who is willing.

The most intolerant advocate is he who is trying to convince himself.

In the Parliament of Otumwee the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed a tax on fools.

"The right honorable and generous gentleman," said a member, "forgets that we already have it in the poll tax."

"Whose dead body is that?"

"Credulity's."

"By whom was he slain?"

"Credulity."

"Ah, suicide."

"No, surfeit. He dined at the table of Science, and swallowed all that was set before him."

Don't board with the devil if you wish to be fat.

Pray do not despise your delinquent debtor; his default is no proof of poverty.

Courage is the acceptance of the gambler's chance: a brave man bets against the game of the gods.

"Who art thou?"

"A philanthropist. And thou?"

"A pauper."

"Away! you have nothing to relieve my need."

Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind; Age backward, for nothing is before.

In spiritual matters material aids are not to be despised: by the use of an organ and a painted window an artistic emotion can be made to seem a religious ecstasy.

The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect. It assures him a seat in the gallery.

One may know oneself ugly, but there is no mirror for the understanding.

If the righteous thought death what they think they think it they would search less diligently for divine ordinances against suicide.

The artless woman may be known by her costume: her gown is trimmed with feathers of the white blackbird.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.

Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.

The present is the frontier between the desert of the past and the garden of the future. It is redrawn every moment.

The virtue that is not automatic requires more attention than it is worth.

At sunset our shadows reach the stars, yet we are no greater at death than at the noon of life.

Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce the errors of youth for those of age.

From childhood to youth is eternity; from youth to manhood, a season. Age comes in a night and is incredible.

Avoid the disputatious. When you greet an acquaintance with "How are you?" and he replies: "On the contrary, how are you ?" pass on.

If all thought were audible none would be deemed discreditable. We know, indeed, that bad thoughts are universal, but that is not the same thing as catching them at being so.

"All the souls in this place have been happy ever since you blundered into it," said Satan, ejecting Hope. "You make trouble wherever you go."

Our severest retorts are unanswerable because nobody is present to answer them.

The angels have good dreams and bad, and we are the dreams. When an angel wakes one of us dies.

Do not permit a woman to ask forgiveness, for that is only the first step. The second is justification of herself by accusation of you.

If we knew nothing was behind us we should discern our true relation to the universe.

Youth has the sun and the stars by which to determine his position on the sea of life; Age must sail by dead reckoning and knows not whither he is bound.

Happiness is lost by criticising it; sorrow by accepting it.

As Nature can not make us altogether wretched she resorts to the trick of contrast by making us sometimes almost happy.

When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.

When God saw how faulty was man He tried again and made woman. As to why He then stopped there are two opinions. One of them is woman's.

She hated him because he discovered that her lark was a crow. He hated her because she unlocked the cage of his beast.

"Who art thou?"

"Friendship."

"I am Love; let us travel together."

"Yes—for a day's journey; then thou arrivest at thy grave."

"And thou?"

"I go as far as the grave of Advantage."

Look far enough ahead and always thou shalt see the domes and spires of the City of Contentment.

You would say of that old man: "He is bald and bent." No; in the presence of Death he uncovers and bows.

If you saw Love pictured as clad in furs you would smile. Yet every year has its winter.

You can not disprove the Great Pyramid by showing the impossibility of putting the stones in place.

Men were singing the praises of Justice.

"Not so loud," said an angel; "if you wake her she will put you all to death."

Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.

Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!

One whose falsehoods no longer deceive has forfeited the right to speak truth.

Wisdom is a special knowledge in excess of all that is known.

To live is to believe. The most credulous of mortals is he who is persuaded of his incredulity.

In him who has never wronged another, revenge is a virtue.

That you can not serve God and Mammon is a poor excuse for not serving God.

A fool's tongue is not so noisy but the wise can hear his ear commanding them to silence.

If the Valley of Peace could be reached only by the path of love, it would be sparsely inhabited.

To the eye of failure success is an accident with a presumption of crime.

Wearing his eyes in his heart, the optimist falls over his own feet, and calls it Progress.

You can calculate your distance from Hell by the number of wayside roses. They are thickest at the hither end of the route.

The world was made a sphere in order that men should not push one another off, but the landowner smiles when he thinks of the sea.

Having given out all the virtues that He had made, God made another.

"Give us that also," said His children.

"Nay," He replied, "if I give you that you will slay one another till none is left. You shall have only its name, which is Justice."

"That is a good name," they said; "we will give it to a virtue of our own creation."

So they gave it to Revenge.

While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide.

He who knows himself great accepts the truth in reverent silence, but he who only believes himself great has embraced a noisy faith.