A cynic is a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, and not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
Related
Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE Vision is not seeing things as they are, but as they will be.
UNKNOWN Intelligence sees things as they are; wisdom sees things as they should be.
MATSHONA DHLIWAYO Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it appears to be.
JEFFREY FRY Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.
JOSH BILLINGS Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.
C. E. STOWE Only fools wait, and only tools bait.
CRE There are approximately two trillion cells in the human body. You are never alone, there are always ...
DWIGHT W. HAYES Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Each of us sees things not as they are but as we are.
JACK PROVONSHA In Cloud computing the difference between a dark cloud and a cloud with a silver lining, is the part...
RAJAT MOHAN A lot of teenagers write to me and say "I want to write a book. I want to get published." And those ...
MAUREEN JOHNSON The words I'm singing now
Mean nothing more than meow to an animal
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE Would you want you as a friend?
PETER STROPLE It should not be surprised by seeing in our weird world that the people for enjoying own bread can a...
ANUJ SOMANY Everyone out there is using you for their entertainment and what you mostly need is to be entertainm...
SUPERNA BATHEJA No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of thr...
ARISTOTLE Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a certain potency of life in them, to be as act...
JOHN MILTON Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as th...
JOHN MILTON Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are t...
MAHATMA GANDHI For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active a...
JOHN MILTON For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: / Whos...
BIBLE No great artist ever sees things as they really are, if he did he would cease to be an artist.
OSCAR WILDE No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
OSCAR WILDE No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist.
OSCAR WILDE An inventor is a man who looks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants...
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be s...
RICHARD HOOKER He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, ...
RICHARD HOOKER We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said ...
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW They can be as angry as they want to. They ought to be ashamed. They're the ones that let a pedophil...
RITA COSBY If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to be a romantic; if you describe...
QUENTIN CRISP This is too much reality for a Friday.
AS GOOD AS IT GETS Common sense is seeing things as they are, and doing things as they should be done.
SOURCE UNKNOWN A person who can look inside into his soul sees then with his vision one and all standing outside ar...
ANUJ SOMANY Parents ought not be afraid to talk to their children early and often about sex, love and relationsh...
BILL ALBERT Rita Cosby: Live and Direct. They can be as angry as they want to. They ought to be ashamed. They're...
ELEANOR COOK And, each in his separate star, / Shall draw the Thing as he sees it for the God of things as they a...
RUDYARD KIPLING Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don't change, they are only r...
JOHN C. MAXWELL Generalizations, like brooms, ought not to stand in a corner forever; they ought to sweep as a matte...
JOHN LUKACS For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active a...
JOHN MILTON Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable...
JOHANN VON GOETHE Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE While some consider God's standards as too confining, a true believer sees them as loving and freein...
CRAIG GROESCHEL They said, "You have a blue guitar,/ You do not play things as they are."/ The man replied, "Things ...
WALLACE STEVENS Where neither go wrong, the naive only see the world as a victim of bad doctrine; the cynic only see...
CRISS JAMI They said, You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are. The man replied, Things as th...
WALLACE STEVENS Learn to see things as they really are, not as we imagine they are.
VERNON HOWARD Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 We must try to be at one and the same tim...
ALEC R. VIDLER Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others as goo...
EMMA GOLDMAN The poet sees better than other mortals. I do not see things as they are, but according to my own su...
ROBERT SCHUMANN Once we recognize the fact that every individual is a treasury of hidden and unsuspected qualities, ...
CHARLES H. PERCY Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty, and spinning-looms...
ROSE MACAULAY The inventor...looks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improv...
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL Learn to see things as they are; not as you are.
MATSHONA DHLIWAYO Poetry is a counterfeit creation, and makes things that are not, as though they were
JOHN DONNE A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung...
PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE The only way to do my job without optimism would be as a cynic, and that's not my nature.
JON SNOW As far as his vision is concerned, [Gore] is probably the most natural of all of them. He runs low...
DON SOLDINGER The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway...
GERTRUDE STEIN Cops aren't really your friends, they are trying to be your friends but they are not....
DEYTH BANGER History is replete with blunders written by sycophants.
TOMICHAN MATHEIKAL They who are ashamed of what they ought not to be ashamed of, and are not ashamed of what they ought...
FRIEDRICH MAX MULLER It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, s...
JANE AUSTEN A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend's griefs, but if he sees him honored a...
CHARLES SPURGEON You see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream things as they never were and ask, 'Why not?'
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.
HERB COHEN A pessimist, they say, sees a glass of water as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass...
G. DONALD GALE We see things as we are, not as they are.
LEO ROSTEN We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.
ANTHONY DE MELLO Sex joins two people spiritually and emotionally as well as physically. This is its purpose-to bond ...
CRAIG GROESCHEL You will be practicing with them twice a day, and they are just as good as you are. They will be jus...
JUSTIN BRAY How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
EVANS G. VALENS Remember that things are not always as they appear to be… Curiosity creates possibilities and oppo...
ROY T. BENNETT Nobody sees any one as he is, let alone an elderly lady sitting opposite a strange young man in a ra...
VIRGINIA WOOLF We see things not as they are but as we are.
JOHN MILTON We see things not as they are, but as we are.
UNKNOWN After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as the...
OSCAR WILDE These two, and the U.S. team, are in such a good space right now. They are strictly tunnel vision. N...
DEBBIE ARMSTRONG There are a lot of enhancements that maybe they should have done a year ago [in Windows XP]. There a...
ROB AYOUB God sees the workplace of some people as a mission field, where they are to fulfill their calling
SUNDAY ADELAJA Use your heart. Understand. Learn to see things
in the now, not as they were or will be, or as ...
E.J. PATTEN We ought to reverence books; to look on them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true,...
CHARLES KINGSLEY We ought to reverence books; to look on them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true,...
CHARLES KINGSLEY The child of three or four is saturated with adult rules. His universe is dominated by the idea that...
JEAN PIAGET Faith is the vision of the heart; it sees God in the dark as well as in the day.
SOURCE UNKNOWN There is a reason why all things are as they are.
BRAM STOKER Laws are man-made! They can be faulty, they can be childish, they can be ridiculous, they can be sil...
MEHMET MURAT ILDAN A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be.
THOMAS PAINE It is my belief that books are living things.... And as living things, they need to be protected.
HOLLY BLACK Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to...
EPICTETUS Life is a journey. When we stop, things don't go right.
POPE FRANCIS He says some things which are taken as gospel, when they ought to be disputed. When he writes 'Coura...
ALAN BENNETT
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Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Fidelity. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking th...
AMBROSE BIERCE Learning. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
AMBROSE BIERCE Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
AMBROSE BIERCE Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.
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AMBROSE BIERCE A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Success is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
AMBROSE BIERCE Edible. Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pi...
AMBROSE BIERCE Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
AMBROSE BIERCE Erudition. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
AMBROSE BIERCE Saint. A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad gover...
AMBROSE BIERCE Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
AMBROSE BIERCE Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
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AMBROSE BIERCE A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly un...
AMBROSE BIERCE Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration t...
AMBROSE BIERCE Admiration; is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
AMBROSE BIERCE To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
AMBROSE BIERCE A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
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AMBROSE BIERCE A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves a glorious success.
AMBROSE BIERCE Peace, in international affairs, is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
AMBROSE BIERCE Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE An optimist is a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
AMBROSE BIERCE They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
AMBROSE BIERCE As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolen...
AMBROSE BIERCE Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
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AMBROSE BIERCE Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
AMBROSE BIERCE An egotist is a person interested in himself than in me!
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AMBROSE BIERCE Opiate. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
AMBROSE BIERCE Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comforta...
AMBROSE BIERCE Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
AMBROSE BIERCE Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
AMBROSE BIERCE Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Mis...
AMBROSE BIERCE Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is please...
AMBROSE BIERCE Wit. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
AMBROSE BIERCE A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man, who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a cont...
AMBROSE BIERCE Dog. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the worl...
AMBROSE BIERCE Physician -- One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
AMBROSE BIERCE Divorce. A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE Consul. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is give...
AMBROSE BIERCE Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscien...
AMBROSE BIERCE Confidante. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
AMBROSE BIERCE The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
AMBROSE BIERCE Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is ...
AMBROSE BIERCE A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.
AMBROSE BIERCE An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
AMBROSE BIERCE To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
AMBROSE BIERCE An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly k...
AMBROSE BIERCE Historian. A broad -- gauge gossip.
AMBROSE BIERCE Habit is a shackle for the free.
AMBROSE BIERCE Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarti...
AMBROSE BIERCE Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
AMBROSE BIERCE Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
AMBROSE BIERCE Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, ad...
AMBROSE BIERCE Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
AMBROSE BIERCE Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly tha...
AMBROSE BIERCE The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
AMBROSE BIERCE When in Rome, do as Rome does.
AMBROSE BIERCE To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Rom...
AMBROSE BIERCE Bore -- a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
AMBROSE BIERCE Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by frie...
AMBROSE BIERCE Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
AMBROSE BIERCE Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things withou...
AMBROSE BIERCE Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
AMBROSE BIERCE Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his o...
AMBROSE BIERCE Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
AMBROSE BIERCE Woman absent is woman dead.
AMBROSE BIERCE The covers of this book are too far apart.
AMBROSE BIERCE Abscond. To move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
AMBROSE BIERCE Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their deso...
AMBROSE BIERCE A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE Conservative. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wi...
AMBROSE BIERCE The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserte...
AMBROSE BIERCE ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply in...
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance is a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor and obscure, and intima...
AMBROSE BIERCE ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn."Eat ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction o...
AMBROSE BIERCE Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
AMBROSE BIERCE Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoulde...
AMBROSE BIERCE DIPLOMACY, n. Lying in state, or the patriotic art of lying for one's country.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds. Misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
AMBROSE BIERCE Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
AMBROSE BIERCE There are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
AMBROSE BIERCE FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
AMBROSE BIERCE ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Mus...
AMBROSE BIERCE HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was a com...
AMBROSE BIERCE ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A m...
AMBROSE BIERCE YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the So...
AMBROSE BIERCE Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo
AMBROSE BIERCE Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscie...
AMBROSE BIERCE One who is in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was onc...
AMBROSE BIERCE Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
AMBROSE BIERCE Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled wh...
AMBROSE BIERCE When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of...
AMBROSE BIERCE Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
AMBROSE BIERCE ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapaci...
AMBROSE BIERCE LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property s...
AMBROSE BIERCE The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
AMBROSE BIERCE Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.
AMBROSE BIERCE Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
AMBROSE BIERCE Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affai...
AMBROSE BIERCE Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
AMBROSE BIERCE Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
AMBROSE BIERCE Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
AMBROSE BIERCE Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
AMBROSE BIERCE Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth ke...
AMBROSE BIERCE Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the wor...
AMBROSE BIERCE Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
AMBROSE BIERCE Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
AMBROSE BIERCE Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the...
AMBROSE BIERCE Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
AMBROSE BIERCE Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction ...
AMBROSE BIERCE The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
AMBROSE BIERCE TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeab...
AMBROSE BIERCE Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
AMBROSE BIERCE Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
AMBROSE BIERCE Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
AMBROSE BIERCE Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and wa...
AMBROSE BIERCE The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
AMBROSE BIERCE