Ambrose Bierce on Time
Browse 10 quotations attributed to Ambrose Bierce, catalogued under time, with dates where available.
This page displays 10 quotations attributed to Ambrose Bierce and filed under "time" in QuoteLineage. The selection is ordered by stored importance and quality scores, not citation counts. A topic label describes how an entry is catalogued; it does not establish the theme's importance in the author's work.
Attributed to Ambrose Bierce, entry #168007: "Clock, n.: A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him."
Attributed to Ambrose Bierce, entry #216492: "While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide."
10 Quotes by Ambrose Bierce on Time
"Clock, n.: A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him."
"While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide."
"Kilt, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland."
"Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin."
"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 1440 times a day."
"Monday, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game."
":Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments."
"Apologize, v. To lay the foundation for a future offense."
"Freemasons, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucius, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids — always by a Freemason."
"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. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one--the knowledge and the dream."