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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
Stones
Dog
Kill
Bowery
Science
Flung
Broadway
Humour
Stone
Medicine

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Liberty is one of the imagination's most precious possessions.
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I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities.
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Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.
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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. The Mad Philosopher, 1697
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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
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ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.
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CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
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RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
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General, said the commander of the delinquent brigade, I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.
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TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
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Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.
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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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Work: a dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.
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Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere survivals - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
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Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
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Don't steal thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
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REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
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TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
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Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
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