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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
Volume
Ten
Kindness
Preface
Volumes
Brief

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
Ambrose Bierce
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REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
Ambrose Bierce
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LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he lost his election.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.
Ambrose Bierce
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Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere survivals - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
Ambrose Bierce
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OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.
Ambrose Bierce
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The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
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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To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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HEART, n. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments . . . . It is now known that sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.
Ambrose Bierce
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Irreligion - the principal one of the great faiths of the world.
Ambrose Bierce
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The god of the world's leading religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Ambrose Bierce
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pleasure, n. The least hateful form of dejection.
Ambrose Bierce
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self-esteem, n. An erroneous appraisal.
Ambrose Bierce
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applause, n. The echo of a platitude.
Ambrose Bierce
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Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.
Ambrose Bierce
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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
Ambrose Bierce