Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Art Quotes, Names Quotes

MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

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TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.

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Age, with his eyes in the back of his head, thinks it wisdom to see the bogs through which he has floundered.

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HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

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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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April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

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A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe.

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RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.

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APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697

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SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent.

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Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron - namely, that he is a blockhead.

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RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries . .

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REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

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art, n. This word has no definition.

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MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.

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CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.

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The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.

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Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.

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Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

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ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.

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