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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
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Politician
Conservatism
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Evils
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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To the eye of failure success is an accident.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.
Ambrose Bierce
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PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians - who are Hogmies.
Ambrose Bierce
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REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.
Ambrose Bierce
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Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
Ambrose Bierce
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Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAJESTY, n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.
Ambrose Bierce
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CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter (see Molecule). The monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation - containing all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher . .
Ambrose Bierce
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Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
Ambrose Bierce
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There are two instruments worse than a clarinet - two clarinets.
Ambrose Bierce
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PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
Ambrose Bierce
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renown, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame - a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.
Ambrose Bierce
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LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject as an editor by not writing about it.
Ambrose Bierce