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WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity.

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
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Menacing
Conditions
Amity
Peace
Arts
War
Condition
Art
Product
Political
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International
Periods

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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
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Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.
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Hash, x. There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is. Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable. Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
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Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have as the right to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like.
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Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
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Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
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KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for bliss. It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.
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True, more than a half of the green graves in the Grafton cemetery are marked Unknown, and sometimes it occurs that one thinks of the contradiction involved in honoring the memory of him of whom no memory remains to honor but the attempt seems to do no great harm to the living, even to the logical.
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The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.
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Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
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Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
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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 . .
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Twice – Once too often.
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You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
Ambrose Bierce
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Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
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We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Ambrose Bierce
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A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
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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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REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
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Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
Ambrose Bierce