Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

- Ambrose Bierce

Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

- Ambrose Bierce

We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.

- Ambrose Bierce

Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

- Ambrose Bierce

Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.

- Ambrose Bierce

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

- Ambrose Bierce

A man is known by the company he organizes.

- Ambrose Bierce

The covers of this book are too far apart.

- Ambrose Bierce

A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

- Ambrose Bierce

Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.

- Ambrose Bierce

Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.

- Ambrose Bierce

Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.

- Ambrose Bierce

Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

- Ambrose Bierce

Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

- Ambrose Bierce

Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.

- Ambrose Bierce

Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.

- Ambrose Bierce

Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.

- 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.

- Ambrose Bierce

Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

- Ambrose Bierce

Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.

- Ambrose Bierce