Quotes from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Patience – A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he can see and feel.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are
four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and
praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain
whether he fell by one kind or another -- the classification is for
advantage of the lawyers.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.
Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion - thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore-
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.

This may be called syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.”
― Ambrose Bierce, quote from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

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Popular quotes

“(We) consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men. Every god and devil that ever existed, be it among the Greeks, Chinese, or Zulus, are within us, exist as latent possibilities, as wishes, as alternatives. If the human race were to vanish from the face of the earth save for one halfway talented child that had received no education, this child would rediscover the entire course of evolution, it would be capable of producing everything once more, gods and demons, paradises, commandments, the Old and New Testament.”
― Hermann Hesse, quote from Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“As your girlfriend, you've just pissed me off. As your High Priestess, you've just insulted me. And as someone with a working brain, you've made me wonder if you've lost every bit of your sense. (Zoey Redbird)”
― P.C. Cast, quote from Hunted

“Most people have two emergency modes. Fight and Flight. But Conner always knew he had three. Fight, Flight, and Screw Up Royally.”
― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind

“He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from The Truth About Forever

“All my adult life I've felt drawn to ask long-married couples how they were able to stay together. All of them said the same thing: "We worked hard at it.”
― Randy Pausch, quote from The Last Lecture

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.