CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.


Ambrose Bierce

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There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY
I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES
No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT
Why is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work, but women are only permitted to be obse...
BARBRA STREISAND
Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above-average.
GARRISON KEILLOR
I hate to witness animals in captivity - or see circus elephants paraded down the streets. When anim...
K. A. APPLEGATE
Ageing is something that both men and women are utterly terrified about.
CATE BLANCHETT
It is past time for women to take their rightful place, side by side with men, in the rooms where th...
HILLARY CLINTON
Men and women are immigrants in each other's worlds.
YAKOV SMIRNOFF
Men and women are not born inconstant: they are made so by their early amorous experiences.
ANDRE MAUROIS
Something wrong with your child? Feed them and put them to bed. Something wrong with your man? Feed ...
SUSAN CARTWRIGHT
Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the c...
GARRISON KEILLOR
The horses have to be well trained. Our goal is to eventually have riding ponies.
BOB SULLIVAN
Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.
WILLIAM PENN
Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children
WILLIAM PENN
I've always said, 'Underwater or on top, men and women are compatible.'
SYLVIA EARLE
Fred Zinnemann, on From Here To Eternity and The Sundowners really brings out of me, in a completely...
DEBORAH KERR
They need to understand they have to do something post secondary. Work is inevitable. They have to p...
DEBORAH KERR
Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, tho...
BETTE DAVIS
If men knew all that women think, they would be twenty times more audacious
ALPHONSE KARR
How different the reasoning is that men adopt when they are discussing the cases of men and those of...
EMMELINE PANKHURST
Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it
EMMELINE PANKHURST
I identify with women more than men. I guess I have a strong feminine side.
LENNY KRAVITZ
Women prefer men who have something tender about them -- especially the legal kind.
KAY INGRAM
One does so hate to admit that the average woman is kinder, finer, more quick of sympathy and on the...
SHERWOOD ANDERSON
Women's liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's men who are discriminated against. They can't ...
GOLDA MEIR
Sarah learnt a lot from Alex. Like the way men could say one thing, then another, then act in a way ...
EMILY MAGUIRE
In Argentina, we're surrounded by polo ponies. The farm covers roughly 170 hectares, and there a...
FACUNDO PIERES
Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.
JACKIE MASON
Most married couples, even though they love each other very much in theory, tend to view each other ...
BAUDELAIRE
I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home, which answer the same purpose ...
MARIE CORELLI
I married beneath me. All women do.
CHER
For a male and female to live continuously together is...biologically speaking, an extremely unnatur...
COTY PERFUME AD
There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literatu...
STEPHEN STILLS
Some men are born with cold feet; some acquire cold feet; and some have cold feet thrust upon them.
ANONYMOUS
Want him to be more of a man? Try being more of a woman!
HONORE DE BALZAC
My mother-in-law broke up my marriage. My wife came home from work one day and found me in bed with ...
LENNY BRUCE
Study to be quiet, and to do your own business. [1 Thessalonians 4:11].
BIBLE
If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.
CHEKHOV
Epperson's law: When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably something his wife can be...
ANONYMOUS
In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.
JOHNNY CARSON
Marriage is like a violin. After the music is over, you still have the strings.
ANONYMOUS
Marriage is like a hot bath. Once you get used to it, it's not so hot.
ANONYMOUS
Marriage is like a box of chocolates. You have to squeeze a few bottoms to make sure you like what y...
ANONYMOUS
Marriage is bliss. Ignorance is bliss. Ergo...
ANONYMOUS
Marriage is a romance in which the hero dies in the first chapter.
ANONYMOUS
It's not as great a day for the bride as she thinks. She's not marrying the best man.
ANONYMOUS
He believes that marriage and a career don't mix. So after the wedding he plans to quit his job.
ANONYMOUS
All marriages are happy. It's living together afterwards that is difficult.
ANONYMOUS
A little girl at the wedding afterwards asked her mother why the bride changed her mind. "What do yo...
ANONYMOUS
A good marriage is like a casserole, only those responsible for it really know what goes in it.
ANONYMOUS
Marital Freedom: The liberty that allows a husband to do exactly that which his wife pleases.
ANONYMOUS
Every mother generally hopes that her daughter will snag a better husband than she managed to do...b...
ANONYMOUS
Compromise: An amiable arrangement between husband and wife whereby they agree to let her have her o...
ANONYMOUS
Be tolerant of the human race. Your whole family belongs to it -- and some of your spouse's family d...
ANONYMOUS
In the past decade or so, the women's magazines have taken to running home-handyperson articles sugg...
ROBERT BRIFFAULT
Honolulu, it's got everything. Sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife's mother...
ENGLISH PROVERB
An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets the more interested he is ...
HONORE DE BALZAC
If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
LENNY BRUCE
Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.
LIN Yü-TANG
I refuse to admit that I am more than 52, even if that makes my children illegitimate.
LADY NANCY ASTOR
Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
S. T. COLERIDGE
Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try to give their best qualiti...
JOAN BAEZ
Women like silent men. They think they're listening.
MARCEL ARCHARD
My wife organized the Jewish Women's Caucus boycott of Moses.. wait.. ! I am receiving a correction ...
JOHN C LEHMAN
Mistress: Something between a mister and a mattress.
JIM BACKUS
She is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.
EDMUND BURKE
If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in the bus in Montgomery, she'd still be standing...
MARY FRANCES BERRY
Woman was God's second mistake.
ARISTOTLE ONASSIS
No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in lo...
ROGERS
The most happy marriage I can imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.
IRWIN COREY
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
BASKINS
I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor's sixth husband. I know what I'm supposed to do, but I don't know how to m...
DAVID BISSONETTE
The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.
HENRY BROOKS ADAMS
On one issue, at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
H. L. MENCKEN
A woman's head is always influenced by heart; but a man's heart by his head. -Lady Marguerite Bless...
LADY MARGUERITE BLESSINGTON
If it's a woman, its caustic; if it's a man, it's authoritative. -Barbara Walters.
BARBARA WALTERS
A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry is to a woman.
EDWARD G. BULWER-LYTTON
There is nothing enduring in life for a woman except what she builds in a man's heart.
JUDITH ANDERSON
They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in congress you know that the filibuster was i...
CLARE BOOTH LUCE
When women go wrong, men go right after them. -Mae West.
MAE WEST
The society of women is the element of good manners.
JONATHAN S. HAAS
Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.
PAULINE THOMASON
I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years.
F. M. KNOWLES
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
SAM KINISON
Bigamy is one way of avoiding the painful publicity of divorce and the expense of alimony.
JOHN HEYWOOD
I'd marry again if I found a man who had 15 million and would sign over half of it to me before the ...
MADAME DE RIEUX
Is it better for a woman to marry a man who loves her than a man she loves.
AMY BLOOM
A husband is a guy who tells you when you've got on too much lipstick and helps you with your girdle...
POOR JIMMY'S ALMANAC
Never tell. Not if you love your wife... In fact, if your old lady walks in on you, deny it. Yeah. J...
MARY BUCKLEY
Ah Mozart! He was happily married - but his wife wasn't.
ANNE BRADSTREET
A small family is soon provided for.
MARVIN KITMAN
Such a wife as I want... must be young, handsome I lay most stress upon a good shape, sensible a lit...
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
SPANISH PROVERB
To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old ...
THOMAS B. ALDRICH
I require three things in a man: He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.
BETTE-JANE RAPHAEL
I have always dressed according to certain Basic Guy Fashion Rules, including: * Both of your socks ...
JILLY COOPER
Eternal boyhood is the dream of a depressing percentage of American males, and the locker room is th...
DAVE BARRY
Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.
NAVAHO SAYING
He knows little, who will tell his wife all he knows.
THOMAS FULLER

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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...
AMBROSE BIERCE
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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