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Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.

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
Characteristic
Signals
Characteristics
Qualities
Humanity
Quality
Inhumanity
Signal

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.
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Behavior, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding.
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EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
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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.
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WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.
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THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science.
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Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
Ambrose Bierce
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UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
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TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
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An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
Ambrose Bierce
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Pantheism, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.
Ambrose Bierce
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OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.
Ambrose Bierce
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When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
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.
Ambrose Bierce
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POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
Ambrose Bierce
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Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
Ambrose Bierce
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Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.
Ambrose Bierce
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REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce