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Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

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
Appears
Appear
Gift
Fool
Orally
Color
Persuading
White
Eloquence
Making
Includes
Art
Fools

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RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.
Ambrose Bierce
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LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
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Economy, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
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X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.
Ambrose Bierce
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MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.
Ambrose Bierce
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DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.
Ambrose Bierce
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CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.
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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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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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Ambrose Bierce
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WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.
Ambrose Bierce
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HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
Ambrose Bierce
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Loquacity, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.
Ambrose Bierce
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Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce
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OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.
Ambrose Bierce
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Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure
Ambrose Bierce
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UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.
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An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.
Ambrose Bierce