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MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

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
Dog
Kill
Bowery
Science
Flung
Broadway
Humour
Stone
Medicine
Stones

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A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
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PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.
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We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization.
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No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.
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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
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REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
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TRUCE, n. Friendship.
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CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.
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Pantheism, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.
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GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.
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Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
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In this world one must have a name it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.
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RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.
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WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
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NOVEL, n. A short story padded.
Ambrose Bierce
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self-esteem, n. An erroneous appraisal.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
Ambrose Bierce
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recollect, v. To recall with additions something not previously known.
Ambrose Bierce
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Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
Ambrose Bierce
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DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.
Ambrose Bierce