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PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
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
Escorting
Corporal
Army
Words
Thought
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
Ambrose Bierce
FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
Ambrose Bierce
REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.
Ambrose Bierce
RACK, n. An argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading devotees of a false faith to embrace the living truth. As a call to the unconverted the rack never had any particular efficacy, and is now held in light popular esteem.
Ambrose Bierce
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.
Ambrose Bierce
CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
Ambrose Bierce
Self-restraint is indulgence of the propensity to forgo.
Ambrose Bierce
ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.
Ambrose Bierce
LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system - an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males.
Ambrose Bierce
REVOLUTION, n. A bursting of the boilers which usually takes place when the safety valve of public discussion is closed.
Ambrose Bierce
PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
Ambrose Bierce
ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
Ambrose Bierce
Patriotism: The first resort of a scoundrel.
Ambrose Bierce
Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Ambrose Bierce
PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.
Ambrose Bierce
MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.
Ambrose Bierce
Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
Ambrose Bierce
Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
Ambrose Bierce
OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground.
Ambrose Bierce
POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
Ambrose Bierce