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Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.

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
Dying
Epitaph
Virtue
Tomb
Death
Tombs
Acquired
Virtues
Showing
Retroactive
Effect
Inscription
Effects
Inscriptions

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.
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You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
Ambrose Bierce
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The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
Ambrose Bierce
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plagiarism, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
Ambrose Bierce
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Woman absent is woman dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss yet when lost it is not missed.
Ambrose Bierce
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Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
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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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
Ambrose Bierce
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PIG, n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
Ambrose Bierce
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Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
Ambrose Bierce
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Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.
Ambrose Bierce
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SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.
Ambrose Bierce
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The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.
Ambrose Bierce
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Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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predicament, n. The wage of consistency.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.
Ambrose Bierce
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Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
Ambrose Bierce