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

The most charming view in the world is obtained by introspection.

Love is unlike chess, in that the pieces are moved secretly and the player sees most of the game. But the looker-on has one incomparable advantage: he is not the stake.

It is not for nothing that tigers choose to hide in the jungle, for commerce and trade are carried on, mostly, in the open.

We say that we love, not whom we will, but whom we must. Our judgment need not, therefore, go to confession.

Of two kinds of temporary insanity, one ends in suicide, the other in marriage.

If you give alms from compassion, why require the beneficiary to be 'a deserving object'? No other adversity is so sharp as destitution of merit.

Bereavement is the name that selfishness gives to a particular privation.

O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain
To get by giving what you lost by gain.
With every gift you do but swell the cloud
Of witnesses against you, swift and loud—
Accomplices who turn and swear you split
Your life: half robber and half hypocrite.
You're least unsafe when most intact you hold
Your curst allotment of dishonest gold.

The highest and rarest form of contentment is approval of the success of another.

If Inclination challenge, stand and fight—
From Opportunity the wise take flight.

What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.

Those who most loudly invite God's attention to themselves when in peril of death are those who should most fervently wish to escape his observation.

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.

How fascinating is Antiquity!—in what a golden haze the ancients lived their lives! We, too, are ancients. Of our enchanting time Posterity's great poets will sing immortal songs, and its arch?ologists will reverently uncover the foundations of our palaces and temples. Meantime we swap jack-knives.

Observe, my son, with how austere a virtue the man without a cent puts aside the temptation to manipulate the market or acquire a monopoly.

For study of the good and the bad in woman two women are a needless expense.

'There's no free will,' says the philosopher; 'To hang is most unjust.'
'There is no free will,' assents the officer; 'We hang because we must.'

Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.

Remembering that it was a woman who lost the world, we should accept the act of cackling geese in saving Rome as partial reparation.

There are two classes of women who may do as they please; those who are rich and those who are poor. The former can count on assent, the latter on inattention.

When into the house of the heart Curiosity is admitted as the guest of Love she turns her host out of doors.