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URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, I beg your pardon, and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.

Ambrose Bierce

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Ambrose Bierce
Born: 1842
Born: June 24
Aphorist
Journalist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
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Meigs County
Ohio
Dod Grile
William Herman
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
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Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.
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Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call war and commerce. These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.
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PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
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Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.
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REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.
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Liberty is one of the imagination's most precious possessions.
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Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
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What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
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BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.
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HASH: There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.
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Riven and torn with cannon-shot, the trunks of the trees protruded bunches of splinters like hands, the fingers above the wound interlacing with those below.
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INADMISSIBLE- Not competent to be considered. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible ... but there is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence.
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Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
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LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
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Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
Ambrose Bierce
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critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.
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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
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Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
Ambrose Bierce