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PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

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
Affection
Fool
Name
Philosophy
Pertaining
Names
Platonic
Love
Socrates
Frost
Disability

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Bierce
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SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.
Ambrose Bierce
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Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
Ambrose Bierce
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TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.
Ambrose Bierce
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LINEN, n. A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.
Ambrose Bierce
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A cheap and easy cynicism rails at everything. The master of the art accomplishes the formidable task of discrimination.
Ambrose Bierce
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Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
Ambrose Bierce
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Immigrant: An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
Ambrose Bierce
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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.
Ambrose Bierce
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God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.
Ambrose Bierce
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Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cat: a soft indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
Ambrose Bierce
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OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
Ambrose Bierce