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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! . . .

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
Art
Definition
Ciphers
Would
Definitions
Wags
Related
Wretch
Letters
Shifted
Name
Ingenious
Names
Rats
Word
Origin
Father
Letter
Cipher

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Confidante: One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.
Ambrose Bierce
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We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness.
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When you doubt, abstain.
Ambrose Bierce
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ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.'
Ambrose Bierce
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FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
Ambrose Bierce
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Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce
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MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.
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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Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
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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IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
Ambrose Bierce
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Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
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I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
Ambrose Bierce
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What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
Ambrose Bierce