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Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.
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
Taught
Talk
Someone
Magpie
Might
Magpies
Suggested
Disposition
Bird
Whose
More quotes by Ambrose Bierce
Introduction - a social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.
Ambrose Bierce
Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
Ambrose Bierce
ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
Ambrose Bierce
Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.
Ambrose Bierce
Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
Ambrose Bierce
Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.
Ambrose Bierce
Historian - a broad-gauge gossip.
Ambrose Bierce
An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
Ambrose Bierce
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
MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
Ambrose Bierce
DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.
Ambrose Bierce
Condole - to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
Ambrose Bierce
THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science.
Ambrose Bierce
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
COMMENDATION n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resembles but do not equal our own.
Ambrose Bierce
To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.
Ambrose Bierce
To the eye of failure success is an accident.
Ambrose Bierce
TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.
Ambrose Bierce
ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.
Ambrose Bierce
It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better.
Ambrose Bierce