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PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence an attribute of the critic.

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
Known
Element
States
Actual
Excellence
Critics
Attribute
Perfection
Critic
Elements
Distinguished
Quality
Attributes
State
Imaginary

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A man is known by the company he organizes.
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WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.
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A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
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Philanthropist, n.: A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
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Custard: A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook.
Ambrose Bierce
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Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
Ambrose Bierce
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Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
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Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire
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GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an author, there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.
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Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.
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Duck-bill, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.
Ambrose Bierce
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ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.
Ambrose Bierce
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A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.
Ambrose Bierce
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Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Ambrose Bierce
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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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Gout, a physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient
Ambrose Bierce
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True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked Unknown, and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in honoring the memory of him of whom no memory remains to honor but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
Ambrose Bierce
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prospect, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.
Ambrose Bierce