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PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

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
Hope
Pessimism
Observers
Optimist
Unsightly
Forced
Prevalence
Conviction
Scarecrow
Smile
Disheartening
Philosophy
Observer
Upon
Convictions

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Christians and camels receive their burdens kneeling.
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An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.
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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
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SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones.
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A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
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A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.
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Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.
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RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
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PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy.
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MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.
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Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
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EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.
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A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.
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Advice, the smallest current coin.
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OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.
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CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
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OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.
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Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
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Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense.
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Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
Ambrose Bierce