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MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

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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Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
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A chop is a piece of leather skillfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants.
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ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
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PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy.
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REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.
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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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K, n. A consonant originally precisely that of our H, but altered to its present shape to commemorate the destruction of [one of two lofty columns in] the great temple of Jarute.
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Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
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RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
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QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
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What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.
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HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.
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applause, n. The echo of a platitude.
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SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar tumble-bug. It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.
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A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
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Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
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