Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
By : Ambrose Bierce
It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Marriage, n: the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
By : Ambrose Bierce
Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
By : Ambrose Bierce