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HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that

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
Doe
Medical
Held
Hyena
Places
Hyenas
Habit
Oriental
Students
Burial
Dead
Reverence
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
Ambrose Bierce
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HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
Ambrose Bierce
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DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
Ambrose Bierce
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Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.
Ambrose Bierce
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Inhumanity, n. One of the signal and characteristic qualities of humanity.
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TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
Ambrose Bierce
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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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Respectability, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
Ambrose Bierce
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LUMINARY, One who throws light upon a subject as an editor by not writing about it.
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In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.
Ambrose Bierce
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TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.
Ambrose Bierce
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GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted.
Ambrose Bierce
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Noise: a stench in the ear.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
Ambrose Bierce
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LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable . . . Commonly Saxon - that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.
Ambrose Bierce
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MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.
Ambrose Bierce
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LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper . . . the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species.
Ambrose Bierce
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INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both - as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
Ambrose Bierce