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PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

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
Keys
Operated
Audience
Parlor
Visitors
Funny
Depressing
Spirit
Spirits
Utensil
Music
Machine
Subduing
Piano
Utensils
Machines
Visitor

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.
Ambrose Bierce
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ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
Ambrose Bierce
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REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
Ambrose Bierce
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PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method . . . of obtaining money by false pretences [by] reading character in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false. . . for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word dupe.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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Liar: A lawyer with a roving commission.
Ambrose Bierce
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PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
Ambrose Bierce
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An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul in woman, the outlet of the heart.
Ambrose Bierce
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Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.
Ambrose Bierce
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Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
Ambrose Bierce
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MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.
Ambrose Bierce
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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
Ambrose Bierce
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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
Ambrose Bierce