Ambrose Bierce Sap Quotations

Past, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy.... Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one-the knowledge and the dream.

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

OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment . . . . judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it.

Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

predilection, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.