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One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

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
Engaged
Pursuit
Dollars
Thing
Pursued
Dollar
Commercial

More quotes by 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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ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.
Ambrose Bierce
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If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.
Ambrose Bierce
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OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an old man. Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an old book.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.
Ambrose Bierce
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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
Ambrose Bierce
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actually, adv. Perhaps possibly.
Ambrose Bierce
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Wine, madam, is God's next best gift to man.
Ambrose Bierce
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Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral.
Ambrose Bierce
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REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.
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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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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PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
Ambrose Bierce
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Wisdom is known only by contrasting it with folly by shadow only we perceive that all visible objects are not flat. Yet Philanthropos would abolish evil!
Ambrose Bierce
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Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.
Ambrose Bierce
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NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.
Ambrose Bierce
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HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.
Ambrose Bierce
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PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom - and of whom only - it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
Ambrose Bierce
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An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization.
Ambrose Bierce
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Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Ambrose Bierce