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WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

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
Beyond
Repulsive
Woman
Wickedness
Witch
Beautiful
Wicked
Young
League
Women
Attractive
Ugly
Devil

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer. Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.
Ambrose Bierce
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CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.
Ambrose Bierce
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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.
Ambrose Bierce
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Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Ambrose Bierce
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The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable Christian forebearance among men.
Ambrose Bierce
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gratitude, n. A sentiment lying midway between a benefit received and a benefit expected.
Ambrose Bierce
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BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker.
Ambrose Bierce
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SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.
Ambrose Bierce
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Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
Ambrose Bierce
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URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, I beg your pardon, and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.
Ambrose Bierce
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A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa
Ambrose Bierce
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They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
Ambrose Bierce
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
Ambrose Bierce
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Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Ambrose Bierce
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Prejudice - a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
Ambrose Bierce
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UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
Ambrose Bierce
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WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.
Ambrose Bierce
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Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Ambrose Bierce