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POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.

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
Politician
Mud
Mistake
Tail
Society
Trembling
Upon
Tails
Superstructure
Organized
Eels
Fundamental
Reared
Fundamentals
Edifice
Mistakes
Agitation

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April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
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PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.
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FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
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A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.
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Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
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Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
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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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To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one
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Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
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LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used ... as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
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Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
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A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa
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USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.
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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
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Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
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CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.
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