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DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

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
Purses
Diagnosis
Physician
Pulse
Physicians
Patient
Forecast
Disease
Forecasts
Science
Purse

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.
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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Forgetfulness - a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
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FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
Ambrose Bierce
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Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
Ambrose Bierce
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At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to be miserable to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.
Ambrose Bierce
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TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.
Ambrose Bierce
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Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.
Ambrose Bierce
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A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Ambrose Bierce
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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of hands across the sea, and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night professions of eternal amity provide the nigh
Ambrose Bierce
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It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
Ambrose Bierce
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When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
Ambrose Bierce
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RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries . .
Ambrose Bierce
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QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
Ambrose Bierce
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Example is better than following it.
Ambrose Bierce
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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
Ambrose Bierce
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Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.
Ambrose Bierce
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JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances . . . the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.
Ambrose Bierce
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R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace, attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than reductus in pulvis.
Ambrose Bierce