The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

—Ambrose Bierce

About Ambrose Bierce

Portrait of Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – c. 1914) was an American author, journalist, and poet. A prolific and versatile writer, Bierce was regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States and as a pioneering writer of realist fiction. For his horror writing, Michael Dirda ranked...

More quotations from Ambrose Bierce

Thinking rationally is often different from "positive thinking," in that it is a realistic assessment of the situation, with a view towards rectifying the problem if possible.

—Ambrose Bierce

Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

—Ambrose Bierce

The covers of this book are too far apart.

—Ambrose Bierce

Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

—Ambrose Bierce

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

—Ambrose Bierce

thought thinking brain

More quotations tagged with “business”

Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly.

—Aldus Manutius

The Americans, who are the most efficient people on earth,… have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on a conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.

—W. Somerset Maugham

sex conversation americans business cliche

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains.

—William Wadsworth

politics nature business

A certain businessman, renowned for his ruthlessness, once made a vow in Mark Twain's presence. "Before I die," he declared, "I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top." "I have a better idea," Twain replied. "You could stay home in Boston and keep them.

—Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

business home travel

American business, while it does not frown on helping the human race, frowns on people who start right in helping the human race without first proving that they can sell things to it.

—Margaret Halsey

morality business selling selflessness

History

11 Jul 2015 Added