Ambrose Bierce Failure Quotations

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

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.

To the eye of failure success is an accident.

PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.