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PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument as, He presided at the piccolo.

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
Upon
Guide
Action
Instrument
Body
Perform
Music
Guides
Instruments
Deliberative
Musical
Presided
Result
Preside
Results
Desirable

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Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
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UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.
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Alligator: The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.
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Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
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DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
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CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, Every man his own horse.
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LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
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MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul in woman, the outlet of the heart.
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CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do me?
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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
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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.
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A penny saved is a penny to squander.
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A modern school where football is taught.
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Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead.
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Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
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REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
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LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
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Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.
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MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
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