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MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.

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
Animal
Makes
Home
Genealogical
Monkey
Monkeys
Trees
Tree

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
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HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.
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OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
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Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
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REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.
Ambrose Bierce
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SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.
Ambrose Bierce
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OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.
Ambrose Bierce
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VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.
Ambrose Bierce
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A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.
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A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
Ambrose Bierce
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REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired Refusals are graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by some casuists the refusal assentive.
Ambrose Bierce
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POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
Ambrose Bierce
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Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
Ambrose Bierce
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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
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Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Ambrose Bierce
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MULTITUDE, n. A crowd the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.
Ambrose Bierce
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pleasure, n. The least hateful form of dejection.
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Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.
Ambrose Bierce