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FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person - a method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to lose his case.

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
Without
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Lose
Loses
Permitted
Poor
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Latin
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.
Ambrose Bierce
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RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.
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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EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
Ambrose Bierce
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FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is, instead of as it should be.
Ambrose Bierce
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Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
Ambrose Bierce
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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce
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A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.
Ambrose Bierce
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Fear has no brains it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.
Ambrose Bierce
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A penny saved is a penny to squander.
Ambrose Bierce
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Convictions are variable to be always consistent is to be sometimes dishonest.
Ambrose Bierce
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I was born to poor because of honest parents.
Ambrose Bierce
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Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.
Ambrose Bierce
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POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.
Ambrose Bierce
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Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Ambrose Bierce
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X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.
Ambrose Bierce