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PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

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
Leading
President
Figure
Men
Group
Figures
Leadership
Groups
Countrymen
Numbers
Positively
Small
Immense

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SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.
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TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.
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REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.
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VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
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alone, adj. In bad company.
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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
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PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.
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Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
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An egotist is a person of low taste - more interested in himself than in me.
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Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
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An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
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PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
Ambrose Bierce
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Income is the natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability.
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FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
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Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
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LINEN, n. A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.
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OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.
Ambrose Bierce
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Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
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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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The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.
Ambrose Bierce