He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age. These are the prerogatives of genius: To know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things. Although one love a dozen times, yet will the latest love seem the first. He who says he has loved twice has not loved once. Men who expect universal peace through invention of destructive weapons of war are no wiser than one who, noting the improvement of agricultural implements, should prophesy an end to the tilling of the soil.
To parents only, death brings an inconsolable sorrow. Civilization is the child of human ignorance and conceit. If Man knew his insignificance in the scheme of things he would not think it worth while to rise from barbarity to enlightenment. But it is only through enlightenment that he can know. Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne.
He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him. Make haste, therefore, to be civil to thy betters, and so prosper, for prosperity is the foundation of the state. Ignorance when inevitable is excusable. It may be harmless, even beneficial; but it is charming only to the unwise.
To affect a spurious ignorance is to disclose a genuine. Because you will not take by theft what you can have by cheating, think not yours is the only conscience in the world. Even he who permits you to cheat his neighbor will shrink from permitting you to cheat himself. In spiritual matters material aids are not to be despised: It assures him a seat in the gallery. If the righteous thought death what they think they think it they would search less diligently for divine ordinances against suicide.
The artless woman may be known by her costume: The present is the frontier between the desert of the past and the garden of the future. It is redrawn every moment. Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce the errors of youth for those of age. From childhood to youth is eternity; from youth to manhood, a season.
Age comes in a night and is incredible. If all thought were audible none would be deemed discreditable. We know, indeed, that bad thoughts are universal, but that is not the same thing as catching them at being so.
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Do not permit a woman to ask forgiveness, for that is only the first step. The second is justification of herself by accusation of you. Youth has the sun and the stars by which to determine his position on the sea of life; Age must sail by dead reckoning and knows not whither he is bound. As Nature can not make us altogether wretched she resorts to the trick of contrast by making us sometimes almost happy.
When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had. When God saw how faulty was man He tried again and made woman. As to why He then stopped there are two opinions. She hated him because he discovered that her lark was a crow. He hated her because she unlocked the cage of his beast. You would say of that old man: You can not disprove the Great Pyramid by showing the impossibility of putting the stones in place. Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly; by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil! If the Valley of Peace could be reached only by the path of love, it would be sparsely inhabited. You can calculate your distance from Hell by the number of wayside roses. They are thickest at the hither end of the route.
The world was made a sphere in order that men should not push one another off, but the landowner smiles when he thinks of the sea. You shall have only its name, which is Justice.
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 by Ambrose Bierce
While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: He who knows himself great accepts the truth in reverent silence, but he who only believes himself great has embraced a noisy faith. Life is a little plot of light. We enter, clasp a hand or two, and go our several ways back into the darkness. The mystery is infinitely pathetic and picturesque. Cheerfulness is the religion of the little.
The low hills are a-smirk with flowers and greenery; the dominating peaks, austere and desolate, holding a prophecy of doom. It is not to our credit that women like best the men who are not as other men, nor to theirs that they are not particular as to the nature of the difference. In the journey of life when thy shadow falls to the westward stop until it falls to the eastward.
Thou art then at thy destination. Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom. And Satan, laying hold of Memory, said: 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. Fear of the darkness is more than an inherited superstition — it is at night, mostly, that the king thinks. 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. The stake is already dead of age. If women knew themselves the fact that men do not know them would flatter them less and content them more. The angel with a flaming sword slept at his post, and Eve slipped back into the Garden. This web edition published by eBooks Adelaide.
Last updated Wednesday, December 17, at I will go about my business and think of her no more. But who art thou, to be so wise? Strive not for singularity in dress; Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style.
If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they. To fatten pigs, confine and feed them; to fatten rogues, cultivate a generous disposition. We know we live, for with our every breath We feel the fear and imminence of death.
The first man you meet is a fool. If you do not think so ask him and he will prove it. Of two kinds of temporary insanity, one ends in suicide, the other in marriage. Bereavement is the name that selfishness gives to a particular privation. O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain To get by giving what you lost by gain.
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The highest and rarest form of contentment is approval of the success of another. If Inclination challenge, stand and fight — From Opportunity the wise take flight. For study of the good and the bad in woman two women are a needless expense. I leaped all the way from where thou standest in fear on the brink of the bog. Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
At the farther end kiss your companion and say farewell. Let him who would wish to duplicate his every experience prate of the value of life.
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My name is Knowledge. Thou art the peril. The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. Virtue is not necessary to a good reputation, but a good reputation is helpful to virtue.
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When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward. We are what we laugh at. The stupid person is a poor joke, the clever, a good one. If every man who resents being called a rogue resented being one this would be a world of wrath. When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant. The virtues chose Modesty to be their queen. If the vices of women worshiped their creators men would boast of the adoration they inspire.
The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity. Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps. A woman died who had passed her life in affirming the superiority of her sex. What poignant memories the shadows bring; What songs of triumph in the dawning ring! By night a coward and by day a king. When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection; thine own is open at thy feet.
I care not to enter thy camp to-night. Thou shalt enter mine. Thou shalt overcome all the enemies of mankind. Ah, woe is his, with length of living cursed, Who, nearing second childhood, had no first. On fair foundations Theocrats unwise Rear superstructures that offend the skies. Come dwell within it and be happy all. When Eve first saw her reflection in a pool, she sought Adam and accused him of infidelity. I shall never again see her! What theology is to religion and jurisprudence to justice, etiquette is to civility.
I shiver in my fine attire. How does it happen that we meet? Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity. Convictions are variable; to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest. When exchange of identities is possible, be careful; you may choose a person who is willing. In the Parliament of Otumwee the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed a tax on fools. He dined at the table of Science, and swallowed all that was set before him. Pray do not despise your delinquent debtor; his default is no proof of poverty.
Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind; Age backward, for nothing is before. Think not, O man, the world has any need That thou canst truly serve by word or deed. Serve thou thy better self, nor care to know How God makes righteousness and roses grow. One may know oneself ugly, but there is no mirror for the understanding. Weep not for cruelty to rogues in jail: Injustice can the just alone assail. Deny compassion to the wretch who swerved, Till all who, fainting, walked aright are served. All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain. The virtue that is not automatic requires more attention than it is worth. At sunset our shadows reach the stars, yet we are no greater at death than at the noon of life. Our severest retorts are unanswerable because nobody is present to answer them.
The angels have good dreams and bad, and we are the dreams.
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