Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Beautiful Quotes, Fall Quotes

optimism, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with disproof - an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Fall Quotes

Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Change Quotes , Art Quotes

NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only by a process of reasoning - which is a phenomenon.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Process Quotes , Latter Quotes

Evolutionary biology is genuinely scientific, but more than that it opens the door to a world more marvellous than any Christian fundamentalist has ever read into the pages of the Bible.

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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

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Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo.

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DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

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Pun: A form of wit, to which wise men stoop and fools aspire

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Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

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OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.

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Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

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A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Turtles Quotes , Attachment Quotes

Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.

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Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Powerful Quotes , Hatred Quotes

SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as... the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Religious Quotes , Character Quotes

OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe . . . . The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

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HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.

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NOVEL, n. A short story padded.

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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.

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

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