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PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.

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
According
Massachusetts
Seriously
Dictates
Sing
Pilgrim
Conscience
Permitted
Europe
Traveler
Taken
Nose
Father
Followed
Noses
Psalms

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Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
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CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, Every man his own horse.
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MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.
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Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
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Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
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When in Rome, do as Rome does.
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ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
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RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
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DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.
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Kiss. n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for bliss.
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God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.
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PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer.
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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.
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Children who have proven themselves to be incorrigible by the age of twelve should be quickly and quietly beheaded, lest they grow to maturity, marry, and perpetuate the likeness of their being.
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Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
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FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
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picture, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.
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DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.
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