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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
Better
Following
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More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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An auctioneer is a man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.
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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Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
Ambrose Bierce
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Backbite: To ''speak of a man as you find him'' when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce
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OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
Ambrose Bierce
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POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.
Ambrose Bierce
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IMPALE, v.t. In popular usage, to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound . . . . properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position.
Ambrose Bierce
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PYRRHONISM- An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.
Ambrose Bierce
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EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect.
Ambrose Bierce
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A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.
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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RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
Ambrose Bierce
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renown, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame - a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.
Ambrose Bierce
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Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the government from running amuck by hamstringing it.
Ambrose Bierce
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CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what does not clearly appear everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
Ambrose Bierce
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Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Age - That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.
Ambrose Bierce
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ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.
Ambrose Bierce
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Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.
Ambrose Bierce
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Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity.
Ambrose Bierce