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REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.

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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Insult
Offend
Gentleman
Aversion
North
Prudent
Indian
Gentlemen
Violence
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Retort
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Retorts
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Repartee

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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
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War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
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YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.
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Labor is one of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
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Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity.
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Behavior, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding.
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MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
Ambrose Bierce
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ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.
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Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Ambrose Bierce
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When among the graves of thy fellows, walk with circumspection thine own is open at thy feet.
Ambrose Bierce
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SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.
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MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.
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moral, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.
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ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape as One day a wag - what would the wretch be at? Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT, And said it was a god's name! . . .
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