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ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

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
Cheating
Cheat
Conspiracy
Tyranny
Speech
Understanding
Action
Oratory
Tempered

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
Ambrose Bierce
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Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
Ambrose Bierce
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Congratulations is the civility of envy.
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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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
Ambrose Bierce
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SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.
Ambrose Bierce
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RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.
Ambrose Bierce
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WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.
Ambrose Bierce
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A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
Ambrose Bierce
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MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul in woman, the outlet of the heart.
Ambrose Bierce
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MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.
Ambrose Bierce
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EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
Ambrose Bierce
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Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.
Ambrose Bierce
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When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
Ambrose Bierce
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In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Ambrose Bierce