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Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.

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
Giving
Interests
Conflicting
Thinking
Satisfaction
Adversary
Conflict
Justly
Except
Adjustment
Gives
Adversaries
Ought
Deprived
Interest
Dues
Nothing
Compromise

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Achievement the death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
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Nonsense, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.
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Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
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PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
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Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
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What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.
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ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
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Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
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MAGNITUDE, n. Size [that is] purely relative. If everything in the universe were increased 1,000 diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been.
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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.
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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.
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OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.
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Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
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HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
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EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
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The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.
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A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.
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