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Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.

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
Funny
Truth
Desirability
Compound
Compounds
Ingenious
Appearance

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
Ambrose Bierce
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IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
Ambrose Bierce
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Brain, v. [as in to brain]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly to dispel a source of error in an opponent.
Ambrose Bierce
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RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
Ambrose Bierce
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There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- I think that I think, therefore I think that I am as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
Ambrose Bierce
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Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind! Age backward, for nothing is before.
Ambrose Bierce
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READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in dialect and humor in slang.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.
Ambrose Bierce
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When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
Ambrose Bierce
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SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
Ambrose Bierce
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picture, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.
Ambrose Bierce
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Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fear has no brains it is an idiot.
Ambrose Bierce
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A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.
Ambrose Bierce