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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
Machines
Science
Frenchman
Guillotine
Makes
Shrug
Reason
Frenchmen
Good
Humour
Machine
Shoulders

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.
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Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
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Custard: A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook.
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Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.
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I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.
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Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
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MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter (see Molecule). The monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation - containing all the powers and possibilities needful to his evolution into a German philosopher . .
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SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.
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Nonsense, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.
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Philanthropist, n.: A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
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You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.
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YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.
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Twice – Once too often.
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.
Ambrose Bierce
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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
Ambrose Bierce
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ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.
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PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
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