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

Men are polygamous by nature and monogamous for opportunity. It is a faithful man who is willing to be watched by a half-dozen wives.

The virtues chose Modesty to be their queen.

'I did not know that I was a virtue,' she said. 'Why did you not choose Innocence?'

'Because of her ignorance,' they replied. 'She knows nothing but that she is a virtue.'

It is a wise 'man's man' who knows what it is that he despises in a 'ladies' man.'

If the vices of women worshiped their creators men would boast of the adoration they inspire.

The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.

Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.

A woman died who had passed her life in affirming the superiority of her sex.

'At last,' she said, 'I shall have rest and honors.'

'Enter,' said Saint Peter; 'thou shalt wash the faces of the dear little cherubim.'

To woman a general truth has neither value nor interest unless she can make a particular application of it. And we say that women are not practical!

The ignorant know not the depth of their ignorance, but the learned know the shallowness of their learning.

He who relates his success in charming woman's heart may be assured of his failure to charm man's ear.

What poignant memories the shadows bring;
What songs of triumph in the dawning ring!
By night a coward and by day a king.

When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection; thine own is open at thy feet.

As the physiognomist takes his own face as the highest type and standard, so the critic's theories are imposed by his own limitations.

'Heaven lies about us in our infancy,' and our neighbors take up the tale as we mature.

'My laws,' she said, 'are of myself a part:
I read them by examining my heart.'
'True,' he replied; 'like those to Moses known,
Thine also are engraven upon stone.'

Love is a distracted attention: from contemplation of one's self one turns to consider one's dream.

'Halt!—who goes there?'

'Death.'

'Advance, Death, and give the countersign.'

'How needless! I care not to enter thy camp to-night. Thou shalt enter mine.'

'What! I a deserter?'

'Nay, a great soldier. Thou shalt overcome all the enemies of mankind.'

'Who are they?'

'Life and the Fear of Death.'

The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon.

Ah, woe is his, with length of living cursed,
Who, nearing second childhood, had no first.
Behind, no glimmer, and before no ray—
A night at either end of his dark day.

A noble enthusiasm in praise of Woman is not incompatible with a spirited zeal in defamation of women.