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

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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
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hybrid, n. A pooled issue.
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REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.
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Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
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Don't steal thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
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CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
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Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
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Mad adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence not conforming to standards of thought, speech, and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves at odds with the majority in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that they themselves are sane.
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A popular writer writes about what people think. A wise writer offers them something to think about.
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The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.
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The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of remarkable Christian forbearance among men - were it not for a mawkish humanitarianism, coupled with imperfect digestive powers, we should devour our young, as Nature intended.
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PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.
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CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.
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Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
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PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.
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