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

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Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
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LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns.
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SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.
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INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.
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RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
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TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).
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MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.
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REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.
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Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
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PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
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DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.
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ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.
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RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
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MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
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PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution - they knew no more of the matter than he.
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POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
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.
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DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
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ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.
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