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Cynicism is that blackguard defect of vision which compels us to see the world as it is, instead of as it should be.

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
Defects
Cynicism
Instead
Vision
World
Blackguard
Compels
Defect

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Salamander: Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Bierce
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DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.
Ambrose Bierce
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The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
Ambrose Bierce
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Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
Ambrose Bierce
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ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.
Ambrose Bierce
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When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
Ambrose Bierce
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I was born to poor because of honest parents.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
Ambrose Bierce
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PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance... The Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.
Ambrose Bierce
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Childhood: the period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.
Ambrose Bierce
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Behavior, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding.
Ambrose Bierce
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A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.
Ambrose Bierce
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In the algebra of psychology, X stands for a woman's heart.
Ambrose Bierce
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X, n. In our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.
Ambrose Bierce
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Youth looks forward, for nothing is behind! Age backward, for nothing is before.
Ambrose Bierce
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A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.
Ambrose Bierce
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Magic: (n) The art of converting superstition into coin.
Ambrose Bierce