CCXXXII
Think not to atone for wealth by apology: you must make restitution to the accuser.
without falling into her hands.
CCXXXIII
Before undergoing a surgical operation arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
CCXXXIV
Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom.
CCXXXV
“Who art thou?” said Saint Peter at the Gate.
“I am known as Memory.”
“What presumption!—go back to Hell. And who, perspiring friend, art thou?”
“My name is Satan. I am looking for—”
“Take your penal apparatus and be off.”
And Satan, laying hold of Memory, said: “Come along, you scoundrel! you make happiness wherever you are not.”
CCXXXVI
Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.
CCXXXVII
The heels of Detection are sore from the toes of Remorse.
CCXXXVIII
Twice we see Paradise. In youth we name it Life; in age, Youth.
CCXXXIX
There are but ten Commandments, true,
But that’s no hardship, friend, to you;
The sins whereof no line is writ
You’re not commanded to commit.
CCXL
Fear of the darkness is more than an inherited superstition—it is at night, mostly, that the king thinks.
CCXLI
“Who art thou?” said Mercy.
“Revenge, the father of Justice.”
“Thou wearest thy son’s clothing.”
“One must be clad.”
“Farewell—I go to attend thy son.”
“Thou wilt find him hiding in yonder jungle.”
CCXLII
Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
CCXLIII
Men talk of selecting a wife; horses, of selecting an owner.
CCXLIV
You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged fourteen hundred and forty times a day.
CCXLV
A sweetheart is a bottle of wine; a wife is a wine-bottle.
CCXLVI
He gets on best with women who best knows how to get on without them.
CCXLVII
“Who am I?” asked an awakened soul.
“That is the only knowledge that is denied to you here,” answered a smiling angel; “this is Heaven.”
CCXLVIII
Woman’s courage is ignorance of danger; man’s is hope of escape.
CCXLIX
When God had finished this terrestrial frame
And all things else, with or without a name,
The Nothing that remained within His hand
Said: “Make me into something fine and grand,
Thine angels to amuse and entertain.”
God heard and made it into human brain.
CCL
If you wish to slay your enemy make haste, O make haste, for already Nature’s knife is at his throat and yours.
CCLI
To most persons a sense of obligation is insupportable; beware upon whom you inflict it.
CCLII
Bear me, good oceans, to some isle
Where I may never fear
The snake alurk in woman’s smile,
The tiger in her tear.
Yet bear not with me her, O deeps,
Who never smiles and never weeps.
CCLIII
Life and Death threw dice for a child.
“I win!” cried Life.
“True,” said Death, “but you need a nimbler tongue to proclaim your luck. The stake is already dead of age.”
CCLIV
How blind is he who, powerless to discern
The glories that about his pathway burn,
Walks unaware the avenues of Dream,
Nor sees the domes of Paradise agleam!
O Golden Age, to him more nobly planned
Thy light lies ever upon sea and land.
From sordid scenes he lifts his eyes at will,
And sees a Grecian god on every hill!
CCLV
In childhood we expect, in youth demand, in manhood hope, and in age beseech.
CCLVI
A violet softly sighed,
A hollyhock shouted above.
In the heart of the violet, pride;
In the heart of the hollyhock, love.
CCLVII
If women knew themselves the fact that men do not know them would flatter them less and content them more.
CCLVIII
The angel with a flaming sword slept at his post, and Eve slipped back into the Garden. “Thank Heaven! I am again in Paradise,” said Adam.
Endnotes
Colophon
Poetry
was compiled from poetry published between 1867 and 1914 by
Ambrose Bierce.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
An Anonymous Volunteer,
and is based on transcriptions produced between 2002 and 2022 by
Rick Niles, Kat Jeter, John Hagerson, David Widger, Charles Aldarondo, Leah Moser, Paul Hollander, Govert Schipper, An Anonymous Volunteer, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Noah: The Eve of the Deluge,
a painting completed in 1848 by
John Linnell.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
September 26, 2022, 7:15 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/ambrose-bierce/poetry.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
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