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Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.

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
Cry
Eternally
Proud
Disputes
Literature
Toys
Dies
Apply
Lying
Immortality
Right
Knees
Would
Sadness
Contend
People
Allowed
Dispute

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Learning -the kind of ignorance affected by (and affecting) civilized races, as distinguished from ignorance, the sort of learning incurred by savages. See nonsense.
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REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.
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A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.
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No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.
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DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
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WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.
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A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.
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Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
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PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
Ambrose Bierce
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PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
Ambrose Bierce
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LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
Ambrose Bierce
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OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser triumph.
Ambrose Bierce
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Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
Ambrose Bierce
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HEART, n. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments . . . . It is now known that sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.
Ambrose Bierce
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WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.
Ambrose Bierce
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The covers of this book are too far apart.
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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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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MUMMY, n. - an ancient Egyptian handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.
Ambrose Bierce