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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.

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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Continuity
Assassin
May
Executive
Respite
Done
Expectation
Assassins
Executives
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Murder
Disagreeable
Determine
Attorney
Prosecuting
Expectations
Enable
Hostilities
Break
Hostility
Sentenced

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Disobey n:To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command
Ambrose Bierce
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QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the U.S. Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House.
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Fidelity - a virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
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WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can be made . . . also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.
Ambrose Bierce
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LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn.
Ambrose Bierce
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Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
Ambrose Bierce
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RAREBIT n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.
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ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another's faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
Ambrose Bierce
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It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce
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Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.
Ambrose Bierce
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A pessimist asked God for relief. Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness, said God. No, replied the petitioner, I wish you to create something that would justify them. The world is all created,said God, but you have overlooked something
Ambrose Bierce
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What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
Ambrose Bierce
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You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.
Ambrose Bierce
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PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
Ambrose Bierce
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As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.
Ambrose Bierce
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HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.
Ambrose Bierce
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APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider
Ambrose Bierce
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UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.
Ambrose Bierce