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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

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
Pretty
Heaven
Lying
Afterward
Time
Infancy
World
Begins
Soon
Childhood
Lies

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
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RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
Ambrose Bierce
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CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
Ambrose Bierce
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We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Ambrose Bierce
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ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
Ambrose Bierce
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predicament, n. The wage of consistency.
Ambrose Bierce
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What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
Ambrose Bierce
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BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.
Ambrose Bierce
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It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
Ambrose Bierce
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TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
Ambrose Bierce
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OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.
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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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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art, n. This word has no definition.
Ambrose Bierce
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The ghost is the outward and visible signs of an inward fear.
Ambrose Bierce