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MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.

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
Soldier
Daggers
Feet
Knight
Used
Knights
Warfare
Mortal
Remind
Mortals
Mediaeval
Foot
Dagger

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Advice, the smallest current coin.
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A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.
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Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
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REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.
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The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.
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QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the U.S. Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House.
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LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
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plagiarism, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.
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Condole - to show that bereavement is a smaller evil than sympathy.
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Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
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Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
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Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.
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A revolution is a violent change of mismanagement.
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OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .
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Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
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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.
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