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PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.

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
Field
Private
Knapsack
Fields
Marshal
Military
Impediment
Hope
Baton
Impediments
Privacy
Gentleman

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PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.
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Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
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Introduction - a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.
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REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.
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Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion in Constantinople, one who does.
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Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
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REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.
Ambrose Bierce
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Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.
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.
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Hurry n: The dispatch of bunglers.
Ambrose Bierce
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self-esteem, n. An erroneous appraisal.
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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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You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.
Ambrose Bierce
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EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
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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LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system - an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.
Ambrose Bierce
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ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
Ambrose Bierce