Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Hope Quotes, Country Quotes

Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.

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Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Disease Quotes , Prosperity Quotes

DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Family Quotes , Faith Quotes

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Retirement Quotes , Spring Quotes

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Writing Quotes , Character Quotes

Human nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.

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Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

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REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

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An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him.

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Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

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A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

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An election is nothing more than the advanced auction of stolen goods.

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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.

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UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Life Quotes , Nature Quotes

OBLIVION, n. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Hope Quotes , Pride Quotes

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.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Religious Quotes , Food Quotes

POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Pockets Quotes , Alive Quotes

There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust." "There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Unjust Quotes , Philosopher Quotes

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Inspiring Quotes , Success Quotes