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Opportunity, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
Ambrose Bierce -
The money-getter who pleads his love of work has a lame defense, for love of work at money-getting is a lower taste than love of money.
Ambrose Bierce
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Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
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Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce -
Clock, n.: A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.
Ambrose Bierce -
Backbite, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
Ambrose Bierce -
Feast, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.
Ambrose Bierce -
Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces that serve the French in place of a state religion.
Ambrose Bierce
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Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
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Advice, n. The smallest current coin.
Ambrose Bierce -
Generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
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Erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
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Freebooter, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
Ambrose Bierce -
Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
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If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.
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O proud philanthropist, your hope is vainTo get by giving what you lost by gain.
Ambrose Bierce -
To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil.
Ambrose Bierce -
Road, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
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You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged 1440 times a day.
Ambrose Bierce
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The poor man's price of admittance to the favor of the rich is his self-respect.
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Insurrection, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
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Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
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We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.
Ambrose Bierce