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Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

Ambrose Bierce

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Ambrose Bierce
Born: 1842
Born: June 24
Aphorist
Journalist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Meigs County
Ohio
Dod Grile
William Herman
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Conservative
Statesmen
Politician
Conservatism
Politics
Evils
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Replace
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Existing
Statesmanship
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The covers of this book are too far apart.
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LINEN, n. A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.
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I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.
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PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.
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TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.
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WIDOW, n. A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one of the most marked features of his character.
Ambrose Bierce
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Kindness n: A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
Ambrose Bierce
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NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.
Ambrose Bierce
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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.
Ambrose Bierce
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Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.
Ambrose Bierce
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DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
Ambrose Bierce
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Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
Ambrose Bierce
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PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.
Ambrose Bierce
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Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
Ambrose Bierce
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No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.
Ambrose Bierce