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DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.

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
Fears
Dependent
Position
Support
Upon
Fear
Reliant
Another
Exact
Generosity

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions where it can get a foothold it makes a stand where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
Ambrose Bierce
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Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Ambrose Bierce
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A penny saved is a penny to squander.
Ambrose Bierce
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Custard: A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook.
Ambrose Bierce
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REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.
Ambrose Bierce
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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
Ambrose Bierce
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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
Ambrose Bierce
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A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.
Ambrose Bierce
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When you doubt, abstain.
Ambrose Bierce
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MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
Ambrose Bierce
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REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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The covers of this book are too far apart.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.
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
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There's no free will, says the philosopher To hang is most unjust. There is no free will, assents the officer We hang because we must.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.
Ambrose Bierce