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diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

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
Diplomats
Diplomacy
Sarcastic
Patriotic
Lying
Art
Country

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.
Ambrose Bierce
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A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.
Ambrose Bierce
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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Bierce
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MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
Ambrose Bierce
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Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
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The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forebearance among men.
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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New York is too strenuous for me it gets on my nerves.
Ambrose Bierce
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The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.
Ambrose Bierce
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SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
Ambrose Bierce
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Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Ambrose Bierce
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FOLLY, n. That gift and faculty divine whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.
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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Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.
Ambrose Bierce
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Condole - to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
Ambrose Bierce
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RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
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An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.
Ambrose Bierce
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Duck-bill, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.
Ambrose Bierce
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POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.
Ambrose Bierce