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STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue.

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
Story
Stories
Untrue
Commonly
Narrative

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.
Ambrose Bierce
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Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.
Ambrose Bierce
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A violin is the revenge exacted by the intestines of a dead cat.
Ambrose Bierce
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Loquacity, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.
Ambrose Bierce
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Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Ambrose Bierce
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ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.
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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PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.
Ambrose Bierce
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Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAJESTY, n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.
Ambrose Bierce
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Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.
Ambrose Bierce
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Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
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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RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.
Ambrose Bierce
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Age is provident because the less future we have the more we fear it.
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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Christian - One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Ambrose Bierce
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RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
Ambrose Bierce
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LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.
Ambrose Bierce