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Kindness n: A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.

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
Kindness
Preface
Volumes
Brief
Volume
Ten

More quotes by 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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True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked Unknown, and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in honoring the memory of him of whom no memory remains to honor but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
Ambrose Bierce
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For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.
Ambrose Bierce
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LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.
Ambrose Bierce
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LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
Ambrose Bierce
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EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.
Ambrose Bierce
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Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce
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Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.
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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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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PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
Ambrose Bierce
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A pessimist asked God for relief. Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness, said God. No, replied the petitioner, I wish you to create something that would justify them. The world is all created,said God, but you have overlooked something
Ambrose Bierce
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DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.
Ambrose Bierce
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There's no free will, says the philosopher To hang is most unjust. There is no free will, assents the officer We hang because we must.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.
Ambrose Bierce
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The god of the world's leading religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Genius - to know without having learned to draw just conclusions from unknown premises to discern the soul of things.
Ambrose Bierce