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PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.

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
Passion
Held
Rapacity
Whatever
Object
Cupidity
Values
Material
Disappoints
Others
Property
Disappoint
May
Materials
Brief
Thing
Objects
Sarcastic
Long
Value
Indifference
Men
Particular
Possession
Gratifies

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The place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.
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As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.
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Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.
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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
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Die: To stop sinning suddenly.
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ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.
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If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
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Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
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Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire
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Labor is one of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
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Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
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Condole - to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
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EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.
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COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
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A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.
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To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.
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Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
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Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.
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TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
Ambrose Bierce