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PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague today . . . is merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

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
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Admonition

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
Ambrose Bierce
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applause, n. The echo of a platitude.
Ambrose Bierce
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To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
Ambrose Bierce
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FOLLY, n. That gift and faculty divine whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life.
Ambrose Bierce
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Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable as, the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur..
Ambrose Bierce
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Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose having a divine character inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions as... the Cow in India the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.
Ambrose Bierce
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Human nature is pretty well balanced for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.
Ambrose Bierce
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Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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hybrid, n. A pooled issue.
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt is the father of invention.
Ambrose Bierce
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HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
Ambrose Bierce
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Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions where it can get a foothold it makes a stand where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall.
Ambrose Bierce
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I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.
Ambrose Bierce
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OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
Ambrose Bierce
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A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
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