Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Two Quotes, Understanding Quotes

INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.

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Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen.

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RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.

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A man is the sum of his ancestors; to reform him you must begin with a dead ape and work downward through a million graves.

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DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

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SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect.

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actually, adv. Perhaps; possibly.

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Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.

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When God makes a beautiful woman, the devil opens a new register.

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Advice: The suggestions you give someone else which you hope will work for your benefit.

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TECHNICALITY, n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference.

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Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

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Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

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OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

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The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.

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Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.

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HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.

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Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" - as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.

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MAGNITUDE, n. Size [that is] purely relative. If everything in the universe were increased 1,000 diameters nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Would Be Quotes , Size Quotes