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PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

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
Piracy
Commerce
Folly
Justice
Without
Made

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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He laughs best who laughs least.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed advantageous to embrace.
Ambrose Bierce
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HOMŒOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
Ambrose Bierce
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The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.
Ambrose Bierce
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SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar tumble-bug. It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.
Ambrose Bierce
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DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance if awkwardly performed . . . deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life.
Ambrose Bierce
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ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
Ambrose Bierce
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PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
Ambrose Bierce
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REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.
Ambrose Bierce
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Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.
Ambrose Bierce
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Friendship: A ship big enough for two in fair weather, but only one in foul.
Ambrose Bierce
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NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.
Ambrose Bierce
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An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.
Ambrose Bierce
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PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method . . . of obtaining money by false pretences [by] reading character in the wrinkles [of] the hand. The pretence is not altogether false. . . for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word dupe.
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