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Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.

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
Disguised
Minor
Minors
Sarcastic
Patience
Virtue
Form

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FOLLY, n. That gift and faculty divine whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.
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CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.
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LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.
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Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.
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PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.
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RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.
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RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries . .
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What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
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When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
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QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the U.S. Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House.
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Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo.
Ambrose Bierce
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ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.
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Human nature is pretty well balanced for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.
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Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
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Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
Ambrose Bierce
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UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
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Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
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Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
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