"Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure."

Bierce, Ambrose on Abstinence
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"Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."

Bierce, Ambrose on Absurdity
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"Consult. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on."

Bierce, Ambrose on Advice
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"Age. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit."

Bierce, Ambrose on Age and Aging
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"Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience."

Bierce, Ambrose on Debt
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"Deliberation. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on."

Bierce, Ambrose on Deliberation
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"Destiny. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure."

Bierce, Ambrose on Destiny
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"Consul. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country."

Bierce, Ambrose on Diplomacy
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"Divorce. A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries."

Bierce, Ambrose on Divorce
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"Dog. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship."

Bierce, Ambrose on Dogs
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"Opiate. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard."

Bierce, Ambrose on Drugs
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"Duty. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire."

Bierce, Ambrose on Duty
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"Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding."

Bierce, Ambrose on Education
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"Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me."

Bierce, Ambrose on Egotism
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"An egotist is a person interested in himself than in me!"

Bierce, Ambrose on Egotism
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"Enthusiasm. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience."

Bierce, Ambrose on Enthusiasm
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"Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age."

Bierce, Ambrose on Experience
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"Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced."

Bierce, Ambrose on Experience
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"Faith. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."

Bierce, Ambrose on Faith
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"Fidelity. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed."

Bierce, Ambrose on Fidelity
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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 pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm."

Bierce, Ambrose on Food and Eating
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"To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense."

Bierce, Ambrose on Forgiveness
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"A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker."

Bierce, Ambrose on Funerals
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"Future: That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured."

Bierce, Ambrose on The future
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"The gambling known as business looks with severe disfavor on the business known as gambling."

Bierce, Ambrose on Gambling
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"Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third."

Bierce, Ambrose on Alliances
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"Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead."

Bierce, Ambrose on Ambition
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"Genealogy. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own."

Bierce, Ambrose on Ancestry
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"Confidante. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C."

Bierce, Ambrose on Gossip
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"Habit is a shackle for the free."

Bierce, Ambrose on Habit
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"Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others."

Bierce, Ambrose on Happiness
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"An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools."

Bierce, Ambrose on History and Historians
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"Historian. A broad -- gauge gossip."

Bierce, Ambrose on History and Historians
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"Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state."

Bierce, Ambrose on Immigration
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"Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy."

Bierce, Ambrose on Impartiality
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"Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table."

Bierce, Ambrose on Insurance
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"Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity."

Bierce, Ambrose on Irreverence
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"Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke."

Bierce, Ambrose on Jokes and Jokers
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"Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify."

Bierce, Ambrose on Knowledge
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"Laughter -- An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable."

Bierce, Ambrose on Laughter
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