Quote

Human nature is pretty well balanced for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.

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
Virtue
Substitutes
Wisdom
Lacking
Nature
Coward
Wells
Balanced
Ferocity
Human
Rough
Pinch
Humans
Serve
Unwise
Well
Courage
Cunning
Every
Pretty
Substitute

More quotes by 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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REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.
Ambrose Bierce
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The best kind of onion soup is the simplest kind.
Ambrose Bierce
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Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
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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Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce
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Happiness is lost by criticizing it sorrow by accepting it.
Ambrose Bierce
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PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians - who are Hogmies.
Ambrose Bierce
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STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue.
Ambrose Bierce
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True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman.
Ambrose Bierce
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MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul in woman, the outlet of the heart.
Ambrose Bierce
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PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.
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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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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A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.
Ambrose Bierce
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GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.
Ambrose Bierce
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Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
Ambrose Bierce
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Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
Ambrose Bierce