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BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters - the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

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
Writing
Blank
Much
Affected
Kind
English
Kindness
Therefore
Acceptably
Difficult
Iambic
Write
Verse
Cannot
Verses

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
Ambrose Bierce
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A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
Ambrose Bierce
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A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
Ambrose Bierce
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MARTYR, One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.
Ambrose Bierce
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Genius - to know without having learned to draw just conclusions from unknown premises to discern the soul of things.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.
Ambrose Bierce
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RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.
Ambrose Bierce
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LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
Ambrose Bierce
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DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
Ambrose Bierce
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PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
Ambrose Bierce
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We must stop chasing dollars, stop lying, stop cheating, stop ignoring art, literature, and all the refining agencies and instrumentalities of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.
Ambrose Bierce
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Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Ambrose Bierce
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MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines, who believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. Herod of Judea, all the famous soldiers have been practical exponents of the Malthusian idea.
Ambrose Bierce
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Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
Ambrose Bierce
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Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!
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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A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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PESSIMISM- philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
Ambrose Bierce
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OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an old man. Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an old book.
Ambrose Bierce