Ambrose Bierce: Short Quotes

Egotist — a person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

Bore — a person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Beauty — the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

Cynic — a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.

Acquaintance — a person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Consult — to seek another's approval of a course already decided on.

Politeness — the most acceptable hypocrisy.

Admiration — our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

Erudition — dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

Patience — a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

Absurdity — a statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

Bride — a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Back — that part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.

Fiddle — an instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.

Friendship — a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.

Historian — a broad-gauge gossip.