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Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.

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
Account
Accounts
Particularly
Family
Care
Men
Genealogy
Descent
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PICKANINNY, n. The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.
Ambrose Bierce
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COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
Ambrose Bierce
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Kindness n: A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
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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Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
Ambrose Bierce
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.
Ambrose Bierce
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Gout, a physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient
Ambrose Bierce
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PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
Ambrose Bierce
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OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
Ambrose Bierce
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It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce
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Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
Ambrose Bierce
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MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.
Ambrose Bierce
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FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs
Ambrose Bierce
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Habit: A shackle for the free.
Ambrose Bierce