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predicament, n. The wage of consistency.

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
Wage
Consistency
Habit
Predicament
Predicaments

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DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort.
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Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
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MULTITUDE, n. A crowd the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.
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DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
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NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.
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REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.
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NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.
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CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
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Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
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RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
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INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.
Ambrose Bierce
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Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere survivals - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
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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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Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
Ambrose Bierce
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TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
Ambrose Bierce
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Bigamy, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
Ambrose Bierce
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While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide.
Ambrose Bierce
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Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
Ambrose Bierce
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EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.
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OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser triumph.
Ambrose Bierce