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ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.

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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Dejection
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Elegy
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In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
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OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.
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PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
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JOSS-STICKS- Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.
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Damning, with bell, book and candle / Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal. / A rite permitting Satan to enslave him / Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.
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TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
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SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.
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Clarinet n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
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Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
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recollect, v. To recall with additions something not previously known.
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EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
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Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.
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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
Ambrose Bierce
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WINE, n.Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union as liquor, sometimes as rum. Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
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QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
Ambrose Bierce
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Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
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HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.
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RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
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In forgiving an injury be somewhat ceremonious, lest your magnanimity be construed as indifference.
Ambrose Bierce