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A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.
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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Wooden
Head
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Teeth
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Following
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Saws
Proverb
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
Ambrose Bierce
A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.
Ambrose Bierce
Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
Ambrose Bierce
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.
Ambrose Bierce
Happiness is lost by criticizing it sorrow by accepting it.
Ambrose Bierce
Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.
Ambrose Bierce
CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, Every man his own horse.
Ambrose Bierce
Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
Ambrose Bierce
MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul in woman, the outlet of the heart.
Ambrose Bierce
The covers of this book are too far apart.
Ambrose Bierce
PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.
Ambrose Bierce
EXISTENCE, n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,/ Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:/ From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge/ Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: O fudge!
Ambrose Bierce
Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
Ambrose Bierce
Homicide, /n./ The slaying of one human by another. There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he died by one kind or another - the classification is for the advantage of the lawyers.
Ambrose Bierce
EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
Ambrose Bierce
PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.
Ambrose Bierce
The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
Ambrose Bierce
ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden.
Ambrose Bierce
HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.
Ambrose Bierce
Nonsense, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.
Ambrose Bierce