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REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

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
Governing
Republic
Obedience
Authority
Nation
Optional
Nations
Enforce
Thing
Permitted
Governed

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PICKANINNY, n. The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.
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A man is known by the company he organizes.
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Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
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Book - Learning : The dunce's derisive term for all knowledge that transcends his own impertinent ignorance.
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TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.
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Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
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HASH: There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.
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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
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OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.
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Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
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EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: O fudge!
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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Quill: An instrument of torture yielded by a goose and commonly weilded by as ass.
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Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
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IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.
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APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider
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EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other-which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.
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INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.
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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.
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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
Ambrose Bierce