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Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.

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
Certain
Peculiar
Flesh
Gratitude
Anniversaries
Bird
Turkeys
Property
Turkey
Large
Piety
Whose
Eaten
Religious
Thanksgiving

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Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.
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EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
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Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
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A pessimist asked God for relief. Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness, said God. No, replied the petitioner, I wish you to create something that would justify them. The world is all created,said God, but you have overlooked something
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Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom.
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Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.
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PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.
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OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.
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CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
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DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
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RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with.
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Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
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GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
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There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself whereas he is a fool then only.
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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.
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Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
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ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly (Musca maledicta). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother has not come down to us.
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