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A lottery is a tax on stupidity.

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
Taxes
Lottery
Stupidity

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.
Ambrose Bierce
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MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
Ambrose Bierce
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PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
Ambrose Bierce
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Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
Ambrose Bierce
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SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose having a divine character inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions as... the Cow in India the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.
Ambrose Bierce
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RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.
Ambrose Bierce
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The place whereon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female fool.
Ambrose Bierce
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Peace in international affairs: a period of cheating between periods of fighting
Ambrose Bierce
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ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
Ambrose Bierce
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Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Ambrose Bierce
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ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.
Ambrose Bierce
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A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
Ambrose Bierce
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DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.
Ambrose Bierce
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HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.
Ambrose Bierce
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Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else
Ambrose Bierce
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If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.
Ambrose Bierce
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GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
Ambrose Bierce
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EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi. A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.
Ambrose Bierce
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WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.
Ambrose Bierce
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You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
Ambrose Bierce