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CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.

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
Obtain
Keeping
Close
Wish
Persons
Fisted
Many
Meritorious
Unduly
Desirous

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Doubt is the father of invention.
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Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
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The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.
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An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.
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PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
Ambrose Bierce
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Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray big belly ache, heap God.'
Ambrose Bierce
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Religions are conclusions for which the facts of nature supply no major premises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
Ambrose Bierce
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CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.
Ambrose Bierce
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PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
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LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.
Ambrose Bierce
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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.
Ambrose Bierce
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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
Ambrose Bierce
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Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.
Ambrose Bierce
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DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.
Ambrose Bierce
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Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
Ambrose Bierce
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ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
Ambrose Bierce