Ambrose Bierce

“A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.”

“Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.”

“Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.”

“Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.”

“Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.”

“The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.”

“Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.”

“The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.”

“Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”

“Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.”

“Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.”

“In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.”

“Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.”