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REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

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
Establish
Rebel
Failed
Failure
Misrule
Proponent

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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REFLECTION,n: An Action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.
Ambrose Bierce
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WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions as, the wrath of God, the day of wrath, etc. . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
Ambrose Bierce
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POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
Ambrose Bierce
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Quill: An instrument of torture yielded by a goose and commonly weilded by as ass.
Ambrose Bierce
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PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
Ambrose Bierce
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BRANDY, n. A cordial composed on one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan.
Ambrose Bierce
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A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.
Ambrose Bierce
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The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two.
Ambrose Bierce
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Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
Ambrose Bierce
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YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
Ambrose Bierce
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Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
Ambrose Bierce