Ambrose Bierce Quotes About War

• Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Sarcastic, Courage, Peace

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.45, ReadHowYouWant.com

• War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Funny, Peace, Military

• The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Peace, Powerful, War

  Ambrose Bierce (1912). “The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce ...: Antepenultimata”

• 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

  Country, War, Patriotism

  Ambrose Bierce, S. T. Joshi, Tryambak Sunand Joshi, David E. Schultz (2003). “A Much Misunderstood Man: Selected Letters of Ambrose Bierce”, p.208, Ohio State University Press

• Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Christian, Cheating, Powerful

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.152, 谷月社

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

  Ambrose Bierce

  War, Army, Thinking

  Ambrose Bierce (2011). “Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs”, p.568, Library of America

• REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Strong, War, Gentleman

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.197, University of Georgia Press

• Every patriot believes his country better than any other country . . . In its active manifestation-it is fond of killing-patriotism would be well enough if it were simply defensive, but it is also aggressive . . . Patriotism deliberately and with folly aforethought subordinates the interests of a whole to the interests of a part . . . Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave and blind as a stone.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Country, War, Believe

• WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Art, Peace, War

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “The Devil's Dictionary (or The Cynic's Wordbook: Unabridged with all the Definitions)”, p.217, e-artnow

• Riot – A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Peace, War, Military

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.202, University of Georgia Press

• War: A by-product of the arts of peace.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Art, War, Products

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.134, Courier Corporation

• LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.

  Ambrose Bierce

  War, Self Esteem, Swim

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.153, University of Georgia Press

• No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Country, War, Men

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “A Son of the Gods and Horseman in the Sky”, p.17, Read Books Ltd

• 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.

  Ambrose Bierce

  War, Men, Weapons

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2696, Delphi Classics

• One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.

  Ambrose Bierce

  War, Night, Men

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.232, 谷月社

• At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.

  Ambrose Bierce

  War, Savages, Idiot

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.9, University of Georgia Press

• CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Peace, War, Boundaries

  "The Devil's Dictionary". Book by Ambrose Bierce, 1906.

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