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Slang is the speech of him who robs the literary garbage carts on their way to the dumps.

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
Way
Dumps
Robs
Slang
Carts
Dump
Garbage
Literary
Speech

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.
Ambrose Bierce
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An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
Ambrose Bierce
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Epitaph: An inscription on a tomb showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Ambrose Bierce
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Human nature is pretty well balanced for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.
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
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MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.
Ambrose Bierce
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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 . . .
Ambrose Bierce
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What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
Ambrose Bierce
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Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
Ambrose Bierce
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POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
Ambrose Bierce
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OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
Ambrose Bierce
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predilection, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
Ambrose Bierce
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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
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TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own.
Ambrose Bierce
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Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Ambrose Bierce
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NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that - stone walls do not a prison make.
Ambrose Bierce
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prospect, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.
Ambrose Bierce