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plagiarism, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

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
Discreditable
Compounded
Plagiarism
Priority
Coincidence
Honorable
Literary
Priorities

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GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These [quills] when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an author, there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling.
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IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.
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Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting
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Immoral is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.
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An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching.
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DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.
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The ghost is the outward and visible signs of an inward fear.
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Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
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Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.
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Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
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UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
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The clarinet is a musical instrument the only thing worse than which is two.
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ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.
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A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play.
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REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
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RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
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PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
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Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.
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