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AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

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
Affliction
Bitterness
Preparing
Bitter
Process
Another
Soul
World

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Accordion, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
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PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy.
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Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
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PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.
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Age is provident because the less future we have the more we fear it.
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FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in London
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Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.
Ambrose Bierce
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R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace, attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than reductus in pulvis.
Ambrose Bierce
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PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.
Ambrose Bierce
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A man is the sum of his ancestors to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves. He is like the lower end of a suspended chain you can sway him slightly to the right or the left, but remove your hand and he falls into line with the other links.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- I think that I think, therefore I think that I am as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
Ambrose Bierce
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CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, Every man his own horse.
Ambrose Bierce
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ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.
Ambrose Bierce
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Intolerance is natural and logical, for in every dissenting opinion lies an assumption of superior wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce
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Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce
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There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.
Ambrose Bierce
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ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.
Ambrose Bierce
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A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.
Ambrose Bierce
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An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
Ambrose Bierce