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LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

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
Serpent
Charm
Treasure
Language
Another
Music
Serpents
Guarding

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.
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MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.
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History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
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Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
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OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
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Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.
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NOVEL, n. A short story padded.
Ambrose Bierce
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OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession it meant own, and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.
Ambrose Bierce
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SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.
Ambrose Bierce
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You can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege - to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you can not even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap!
Ambrose Bierce
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PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
Ambrose Bierce
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critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.
Ambrose Bierce
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art, n. This word has no definition.
Ambrose Bierce
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DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: O fudge!
Ambrose Bierce
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MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hurry n: The dispatch of bunglers.
Ambrose Bierce
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Empty wine bottles have a bad opinion of women.
Ambrose Bierce
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SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.
Ambrose Bierce