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EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.

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
Prose
Acidity
Short
Epigram
Saying
Epigrams
Wisdom
Characterize
Sometimes
Verse
Verses
Sharp
Frequently

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.
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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LIAR, n. One who tells an unpleasant truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
Ambrose Bierce
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A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa
Ambrose Bierce
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Learning -the kind of ignorance affected by (and affecting) civilized races, as distinguished from ignorance, the sort of learning incurred by savages. See nonsense.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
Ambrose Bierce
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URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, I beg your pardon, and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.
Ambrose Bierce
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VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.
Ambrose Bierce
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WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions as, the wrath of God, the day of wrath, etc. . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.
Ambrose Bierce
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Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
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One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
Ambrose Bierce
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Definition: CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.
Ambrose Bierce
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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
Ambrose Bierce
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MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.
Ambrose Bierce