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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
Compounds
Ingenious
Appearance
Funny
Truth
Desirability
Compound

More quotes by 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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Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
Ambrose Bierce
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Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!
Ambrose Bierce
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BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber they fertilize.
Ambrose Bierce
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TENACITY, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics.
Ambrose Bierce
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LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.
Ambrose Bierce
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Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.
Ambrose Bierce
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predilection, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
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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A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Ambrose Bierce
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MARTYR, One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.
Ambrose Bierce
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PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction - prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.
Ambrose Bierce
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Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
Ambrose Bierce
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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
Ambrose Bierce
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LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used ... as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.
Ambrose Bierce
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INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to - in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning.
Ambrose Bierce