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REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

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
Learning
Referendums
Opinion
Proposed
Public
Proposal
Law
Submission
Learn
Legislation
Nonsense
Popular
Vote
Referendum

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HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.
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AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.
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RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.
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HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.
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NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.
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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
Ambrose Bierce
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Strive not for singularity in dress Fools have the more and men of sense the less. To look original is not worth while, But be in mind a little out of style.
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DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.
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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ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
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A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.
Ambrose Bierce
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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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Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.
Ambrose Bierce
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HEART, n. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments . . . . It is now known that sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.
Ambrose Bierce
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Human nature is pretty well balanced for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.
Ambrose Bierce
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Habit: A shackle for the free.
Ambrose Bierce
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COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose having a divine character inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions as... the Cow in India the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.
Ambrose Bierce
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MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
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Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
Ambrose Bierce