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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

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
Spring
Arrangement
Civilization
Ingenious
Technology
Inventor
Science
Springs
Makes
Arrangements
Persons
Wheels
Person
Believes
Believe
Invention
Levers

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Brain, v. [as in to brain]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly to dispel a source of error in an opponent.
Ambrose Bierce
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REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.
Ambrose Bierce
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Definition: CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.
Ambrose Bierce
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PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method . . . of obtaining money by false pretences [by] reading character in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false. . . for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word dupe.
Ambrose Bierce
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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce
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RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another. When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was observed to be deeply moved. What! said one of his disciples, you weep at the death of an enemy? Ah, 'tis true, replied the great Stoic but you should see me smile at the death of a friend..
Ambrose Bierce
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REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPLICA, n. A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original. It is so called to distinguish it from a copy, which is made by another artist. When the two are mae with equal skill the replica is the more valuable, for it is suppose
Ambrose Bierce
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REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
Ambrose Bierce
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TENACITY, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics.
Ambrose Bierce
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I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.
Ambrose Bierce
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Contempt the feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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Habit: A shackle for the free.
Ambrose Bierce
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WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
Ambrose Bierce