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KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for bliss. It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.

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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Kissing
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DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
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To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.
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Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.
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gratitude, n. A sentiment lying midway between a benefit received and a benefit expected.
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NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.
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The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men - were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended.
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VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.
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The ghost is the outward and visible signs of an inward fear.
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INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both - as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.
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What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
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KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
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Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
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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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UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.
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To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
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Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray big belly ache, heap God.'
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Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.
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A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.
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When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.
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PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
Ambrose Bierce