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Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.

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
Youth
Applications
Small
Dose
Experience
Outward
Reality
Repentance
Application
Connection
Distemper
Enthusiasm
Curable
Connections
Doses

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.
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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.
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Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
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You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
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ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.
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Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
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True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked Unknown, and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in honoring the memory of him of whom no memory remains to honor but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
Ambrose Bierce
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HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
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Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
Ambrose Bierce
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PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
Ambrose Bierce
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PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.
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Inexpedient: Not calculated to advance one's interests.
Ambrose Bierce
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POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.
Ambrose Bierce
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An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I cherish the fancy that Port speaks sentences of wisdom, Burgundy sings the inspired Ode.
Ambrose Bierce
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REFLECTION,n: An Action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter
Ambrose Bierce
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Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
Ambrose Bierce
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Platitude: All that is mortal of a departed truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting
Ambrose Bierce
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Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.
Ambrose Bierce