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OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

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
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Inspire
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Taxes
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Poet
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Environment
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Poets

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Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.
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NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.
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A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
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The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.
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REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.
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Children who have proven themselves to be incorrigible by the age of twelve should be quickly and quietly beheaded, lest they grow to maturity, marry, and perpetuate the likeness of their being.
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CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do me?
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PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
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JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances . . . the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.
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Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
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RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
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Opportunity: A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
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EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
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DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.
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UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.
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Houseless: Having paid all taxes on household goods.
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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.
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