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As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.

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
School
Spread
Dispensing
Give
Ignorance
Boasted
Without
Fool
Formulated
Enough
System
Spreads
Giving
Public
Sufficiently
Mean
Education
Competent
Make
Everyone
Thin
Would
Means
Merit

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
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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.
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Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.
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Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
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Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
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Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.
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NEWTONIAN, Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.
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Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
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PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.
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Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
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CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.
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Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.
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NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.
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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FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.
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INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
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Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
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TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).
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