Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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Liberty, n. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.
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Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.
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Accord, n. Harmony.
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Peyton Fahrquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
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Amnesty, n. The state’s magnaminity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
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Success, n. The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.
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Vote, v. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
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Alone, adj. In bad company.
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Monday, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
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Brain, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think... In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
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There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.
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Apologize, v. To lay the foundation for a future offense.
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Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.
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Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
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Optimist, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
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Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amok by hamstringing it.
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Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous
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When lost in a forest go always down hill. When lost in a philosophy or doctrine go upward.
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Capital, n. The seat of misgovernment.
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Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.
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Clarionet, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet - two clarionets.
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Saint, n. A dead sinner, revised and edited.
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Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it.
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Riven and torn with cannon-shot, the trunks of the trees protruded bunches of splinters like hands, the fingers above the wound interlacing with those below.