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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
Speech
Way
Dumps
Robs
Slang
Carts
Dump
Garbage
Literary

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.
Ambrose Bierce
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OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.
Ambrose Bierce
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Mausoleum, n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
Ambrose Bierce
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EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.
Ambrose Bierce
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CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.
Ambrose Bierce
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REACH, n. The radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide.
Ambrose Bierce
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INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
Ambrose Bierce
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Genius - to know without having learned to draw just conclusions from unknown premises to discern the soul of things.
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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Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.
Ambrose Bierce
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Pantheism, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.
Ambrose Bierce
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J, n. A consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel . . . from a Latin verb, jacere, to throw, because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape.
Ambrose Bierce
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Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Ambrose Bierce
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HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.
Ambrose Bierce
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VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
Ambrose Bierce
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Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
Ambrose Bierce
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QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hope is desire and expectation rolled into one.
Ambrose Bierce