Ambrose Bierce quote: "BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters --the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind."

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
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Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the e...
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Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
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Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
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Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for,...
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Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
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Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to ...
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Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
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Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
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Doubt is the father of invention.
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Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
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Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their ...
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Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
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Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
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Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
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Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
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Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to ...
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Liberty:one of imaginations most precious possessions.
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Quoting: the act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
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Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.
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Success is the one unpardonable sin against our fellows.
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Optimist: a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
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Litigant: a person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bone.
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Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.
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Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
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OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills.
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ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth b...
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For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His e...
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Education, n.: That which discloses the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understand...
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Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
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Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
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Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
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You don't have to be stupid to be a Christian, ... but it probably helps.
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Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no g...
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Fidelity. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
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Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.
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The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
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Marriage. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, m...
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Bride. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
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What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republi...
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Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking th...
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Learning. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
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Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
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Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.
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Life. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
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Acquaintance: a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate ...
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An acquaintance is someone we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
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A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
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Beauty. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
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Let me tell you what a writer is. A writer takes comprehensive views, holds large convictions, makes...
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Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
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Don't steal; thou it never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.
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Philanthropist. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his co...
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Age. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no...
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Success is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.
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Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understan...
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Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
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Edible. Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pi...
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Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
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Erudition. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
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Saint. A dead sinner revised and edited.
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Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad gover...
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Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
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Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.
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Deliberation. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
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Take not God's name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.
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A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
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Bigot, one who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
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Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly un...
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Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration t...
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Admiration; is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
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To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.
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A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
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A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves a glorious success.
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Peace, in international affairs, is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
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Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
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Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
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An optimist is a proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
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They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
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As records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolen...
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Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.
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Politeness -- The most acceptable hypocrisy.
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A man is known by the company he organizes.
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Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapaciti...
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Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward ap...
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Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
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An egotist is a person interested in himself than in me!
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Duty. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
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Opiate. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.
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Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comforta...
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Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.
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Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
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Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Mis...
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Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is please...
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Wit. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
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A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man, who has no gills.
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Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a cont...
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Dog. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the worl...
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Physician -- One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
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Divorce. A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
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Consul. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is give...
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Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscien...
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A cynic is a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, and not as they ought to be.
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Confidante. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.
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The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
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Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is ...
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A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.
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An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.
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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
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An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly k...
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Historian. A broad -- gauge gossip.
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Habit is a shackle for the free.
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Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarti...
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Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
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Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
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Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, ad...
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Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
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Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly tha...
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The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
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PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.
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When in Rome, do as Rome does.
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To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Rom...
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Bore -- a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by frie...
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Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
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Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things withou...
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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
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Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his o...
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Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
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Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
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Woman absent is woman dead.
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The covers of this book are too far apart.
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Abscond. To move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.
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Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their deso...
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A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
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Conservative. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wi...
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The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
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Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of ...
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Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserte...
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ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply in...
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Acquaintance is a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor and obscure, and intima...
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ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn."Eat ...
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Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction o...
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Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.
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Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
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International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoulde...
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DIPLOMACY, n. Lying in state, or the patriotic art of lying for one's country.
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Calamities are of two kinds. Misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
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A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
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Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.
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There are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
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FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
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ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Mus...
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HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was a com...
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ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A m...
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YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the So...
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Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo
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Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscie...
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One who is in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
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OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was onc...
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Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
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Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.
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Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
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QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled wh...
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When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.
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Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of...
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Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else.
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ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapaci...
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LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property s...
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The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
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Birth: The first and direst of all disasters.
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Dawn: When men of reason go to bed.
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Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affai...
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Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.
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Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
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Admiral. That part of a warship which does the talking while the figurehead does the thinking.
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Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable.
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Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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Mad, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake ...
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Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth ke...
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Dog - a kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the wor...
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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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Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.
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Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities ...
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Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the...
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Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
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Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction ...
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The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
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TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeab...
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Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
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Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
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Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
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Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.
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Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and wa...
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BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters --the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

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Ambrose Bierce

BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters --the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

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