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COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.

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
Power
Eloquence
Compulsion

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation. . . . Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologians with a controversy.
Ambrose Bierce
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predilection, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
Ambrose Bierce
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Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
Ambrose Bierce
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One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of hands across the sea, and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night professions of eternal amity provide the nigh
Ambrose Bierce
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DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.
Ambrose Bierce
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The palmist looks at the wrinkles made by closing the hand and says they signify character. The philosopher reads character by what the hand most loves to close upon.
Ambrose Bierce
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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.
Ambrose Bierce
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Children who have proven themselves to be incorrigible by the age of twelve should be quickly and quietly beheaded, lest they grow to maturity, marry, and perpetuate the likeness of their being.
Ambrose Bierce
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When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
Ambrose Bierce
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X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.
Ambrose Bierce
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Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship.
Ambrose Bierce
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No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war.
Ambrose Bierce
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CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.
Ambrose Bierce
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Die: To stop sinning suddenly.
Ambrose Bierce
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Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Ambrose Bierce