Income is the natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability.


Ambrose Bierce

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The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
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Baptize yourself with the flow of rational thinking and the world is bound to become rational.
ABHIJIT NASKAR
Measure your success not by the income, but by the outcome.
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I’ve found that the way a person feels about cats—and the way they feel about him or her in retu...
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I've found that the way a person feels about cats-and the way they feel about him or her in return-i...
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To stand on the
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The AGGI will serve as a gauge of success or failure of future efforts to curb carbon dioxide and ot...
DAVID HOFMANN
The hat is the ultimatum moriens of respectability.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR.
'Gay panic' is insidious. It is corrupt because it appeals to a public that is used to discarding an...
JEFFREY MONTGOMERY
The need for prostitution arises from the fact that many men are either unmarried or away from their...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability
SAM KEEN
And what good is a voice when so few will listen?
STACEY JAY
I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It i...
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Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind....
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To take the measure of oneself by reference to one's colleagues leads to envy or complacency rather ...
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The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind
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The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroo...
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The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroo...
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I work with the macro economy, which involves the major variables that measure the health of the who...
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The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational.
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Laws are important and valuable in the exact natural sciences, in the measure that those sciences ar...
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Pastor Smith did not have the religious constitution needed to provide salvation for any of us who�...
CHERYL R COWTAN
Almost every measure of education, or cognitive ability, or talent is now associated with a higher i...
HARRY HOLZER
I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than...
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I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, th...
MARCUS T. CICERO
I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than...
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Well, Valek, any new promotions?” the Commander asked
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Anger - a beast within us that needs taming.
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Then that's what the Northern Lights are. All the lives that we're not living.
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The end is the matter! A step to the end is a factor!
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If in barbed wire things can bloom, why couldn't I? I will not die, I will not die.
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The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a...
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Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on ...
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Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.
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It's going to be a gauge for us, and it's going to be a big gauge.
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Everyone gets dumped and everyone gets hurt and there's karma to love in regards to what you'...
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My dad's quite a conservative person, and he brought me up to be very questioning of the commerc...
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I don't think she's a lesbian. I think she just ran out of men. [Charlotte]
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When you are with the wrong person, who doesn't really love you, all you want is to be adored. I...
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I really like the look of the 1950s, lots of suburban Americana influences. I'm 5'4', so...
MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS
I am very curvy, so the vintage stores suit me better than most designers. I just can't seem to ...
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I have quite a lot of plastic sunglasses. It's just a nice accessory, it adds a final thing, and...
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I lived in Greece for about four years of my life, and living there had a huge impact on my life gro...
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I'm not really part of that 'L.A. thing' or that celebrity culture. I'm more like so...
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This obsession with celebrity culture is really unhealthy. I don't want to live my life like tha...
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Even when I see a beautiful woman, I think, 'Aw, her life must be amazing.' Everyone does it...
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Blonde symbolises sexuality and power - it holds very different connotations. The archetypal star ha...
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Love is really my nemesis. I never really allowed myself to indulge in such basic things because I w...
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Puberty is a phase... fifteen years of rejection is a lifestyle. [Stanford]
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I criticized the whole American songwriting industry and the pop side of it and I was bitter about i...
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Oh my God, she's fashion road-kill!
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I love you, but I love myself more.
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Desperate Housewives.
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I'm masquerading as an innocent pop star.
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the lights fade to black.
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Bellhop: "this is a non-smoking floor."Carrie: "I have an addiction sir!"
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F*** me badly once, shame on you. F*** me badly twice, shame on me.
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'Rome' vital to HBO TV empire.
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Sex and the City.
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More Ambrose Bierce

Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the e...
AMBROSE BIERCE
Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to ...
AMBROSE BIERCE
Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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 ...
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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...
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, ad...
AMBROSE BIERCE
Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
When in Rome, do as Rome does.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his o...
AMBROSE BIERCE
Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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...
AMBROSE BIERCE
A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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 ...
AMBROSE BIERCE
Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserte...
AMBROSE BIERCE
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...
AMBROSE BIERCE
ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn."Eat ...
AMBROSE BIERCE
Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction o...
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly ("Mus...
AMBROSE BIERCE
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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...
AMBROSE BIERCE
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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