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OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

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
Cold
Authors
High
Ambitious
Hope
Hopes
Dormitory
Place
Clock
Betters
Without
Envy
Storage
Meet
Alarm
Pride
Alarms
Works
Oblivion

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Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
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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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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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Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
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EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.
Ambrose Bierce
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Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
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To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.
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A wedding is a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.
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Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
Ambrose Bierce
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Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion in Constantinople, one who does.
Ambrose Bierce
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Introduction - a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose having a divine character inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions as... the Cow in India the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.
Ambrose Bierce
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Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
Ambrose Bierce
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Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Don't steal thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
Ambrose Bierce