Ambrose Bierce

In architecture, the upper part of a column, upon which, in all good architecture, sits the thoughtful stork pondering unutterable things.

There are persons in this world, millions of persons, and far and away the best persons, who regard that as a very advanced age. They are the children.

But if detected he would be dead shortly afterward, death being the just and legal penalty of his crime.

What! “Out of danger?” Then, by Heaven, I’m dead!

A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Unfortunately, our feelings do not always respect the law of probabilities, and to me that evening, the possible and the impossible were equally disquieting.

In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

If the cunning rascal upon the limb Hadn’t tempted her she’d have tempted him.

A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

In the register of the potter’s field I shall soon have both. What wealth!

He had no wish to perfect his escape⁠—was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

Of theories about the State.

A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

I have a machine in there that lost its temper and cut up rough.

The soldier never becomes wholly familiar with the conception of his foes as men like himself; he cannot divest himself of the feeling that they are another order of beings, differently conditioned, in an environment not altogether of the earth.

Perish the ancient custom of the gift,

The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the world in which you live!

He is not alone⁠—he draws all souls after him.

Within a minute’s fraction!