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Ambrose Bierce on Anniversary

1842–1910 United States

← All quotes by Ambrose Bierce

11 quotes

Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

Marriage, n. A community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Uxoriousness, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.

Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage...

Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Neighbor, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Helpmate, n. A wife, or bitter half.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to probability, as a domestic horse to the hitching-post, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination -- free, lawless, immune to bit and rein.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ambrose Bierce (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.