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Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

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
Occasions
Disappointment
Opportunity
Favorable
Grasping
Occasion

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
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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The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPALE, v.t. In popular usage, to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound . . . . properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position.
Ambrose Bierce
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GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.
Ambrose Bierce
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Dance, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.
Ambrose Bierce
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CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.
Ambrose Bierce
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KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a crowned head, although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
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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moral, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
Ambrose Bierce
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Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Ambrose Bierce
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Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.
Ambrose Bierce
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prospect, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.
Ambrose Bierce
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Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
Ambrose Bierce
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REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.
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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A revolution is a violent change of mismanagement.
Ambrose Bierce
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The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two.
Ambrose Bierce