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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
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Wretch
Letters
Shifted
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Ingenious
Names
Rats
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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INADMISSIBLE- Not competent to be considered. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible ... but there is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence.
Ambrose Bierce
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TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
Ambrose Bierce
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Appetite, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.
Ambrose Bierce
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WEAKNESSES, n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.
Ambrose Bierce
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ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
Ambrose Bierce
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Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.
Ambrose Bierce
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GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an author, there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.
Ambrose Bierce
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An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
Ambrose Bierce
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General, said the commander of the delinquent brigade, I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.
Ambrose Bierce
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me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.
Ambrose Bierce
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MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.
Ambrose Bierce
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Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
Ambrose Bierce
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LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers - particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives.
Ambrose Bierce
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Convictions are variable to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.
Ambrose Bierce
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TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).
Ambrose Bierce