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TENACITY, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics.

Ambrose Bierce

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Ambrose Bierce
Born: 1842
Born: June 24
Aphorist
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Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Meigs County
Ohio
Dod Grile
William Herman
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
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DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.
Ambrose Bierce
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A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
Ambrose Bierce
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LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.
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Habit: A shackle for the free.
Ambrose Bierce
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COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.
Ambrose Bierce
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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
Ambrose Bierce
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POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
Ambrose Bierce
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PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution - they knew no more of the matter than he.
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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RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.
Ambrose Bierce
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ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection.
Ambrose Bierce
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CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
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REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
Ambrose Bierce
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Book - Learning : The dunce's derisive term for all knowledge that transcends his own impertinent ignorance.
Ambrose Bierce