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GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.
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
Good
Frenchmen
Humour
Machine
Shoulders
Machines
Science
Frenchman
Makes
Guillotine
Reason
Shrug
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
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
Learning -the kind of ignorance affected by (and affecting) civilized races, as distinguished from ignorance, the sort of learning incurred by savages. See nonsense.
Ambrose Bierce
Nonsense, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.
Ambrose Bierce
ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.
Ambrose Bierce
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity.
Ambrose Bierce
I was born to poor because of honest parents.
Ambrose Bierce
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
RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
Ambrose Bierce
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Ambrose Bierce
As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.
Ambrose Bierce
Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is - it is her shadow.
Ambrose Bierce
TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
Ambrose Bierce
IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
Ambrose Bierce
BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
Ambrose Bierce
Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
Ambrose Bierce
ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
Ambrose Bierce
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
PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.
Ambrose Bierce
Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
Ambrose Bierce
