Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Air Quotations
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Quotes about:
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Act Quotes
ABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation. For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her: She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her. To History she'll be no royal riddle -- Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle. --G.J.
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Agreed Quotes
ROBBER, n. A candid man of affairs. It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling companion lodged at a wayside inn. The surroundings were suggestive, and after supper they agreed to tell robber stories in turn. ""Once there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues."" Saying nothing more, he was encouraged to continue. ""That,"" he said, ""is the story.
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Ability Quotes
INNATE, adj. Natural, inherent --as innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it ""a black eye."" Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one's ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one's country, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance of one's personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one's diseases.
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Beneath Quotes
SCARABEE, n. The same as scarabaeus.He fell by his own hand Beneath the great oak tree. He'd traveled in a foreign land. He tried to make her understand The dance that's called the Saraband, But he called it Scarabee. He had called it so through an afternoon, And she, the light of his harem if so might be, Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see, All frosted there in the shine o' the moon -- Dead for a Scarabee And a recollection that came too late. O Fate! They buried him where he lay, He sleeps awaiting the Day, In state, And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan, Gloom over the grave and then move on. Dead for a Scarabee! --Fernando Tapple
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Against Quotes
SUCCESS, n. The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows. In literature, and particularly in poetry, the elements of success are exceedingly simple, and are admirably set forth in the following lines by the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape, entitled, for some mysterious reason, ""John A. Joyce.""The bard who would prosper must carry a book, Do his thinking in prose and wear A crimson cravat, a far-away look And a head of hexameter hair. Be thin in your thought and your body'll be fat; If you wear your hair long you needn't your hat.
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Affairs Quotes
PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could supply --the sword, the spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of propulsion.
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Affairs Quotes
NOSE, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.There's a man with a Nose, And wherever he goes The people run from him and shout:""No cotton have we For our ears if so be He blow that interminous snout!""So the lawyers applied For injunction. ""Denied,"" Said the Judge: ""the defendant prefixion, Whate'er it portend, Appears to transcend The bounds of this court's jurisdiction."" --Arpad Singiny
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Barometer Quotes
FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.The sea was calm and the sky was blue; Merrily, merrily sailed we two.(High barometer maketh glad.) On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout, The tempest descended and we fell out.(O the walking is nasty bad!) --Armit Huff Bettle
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Acting Quotes
LAUREATE, adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect of a national crime.
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Accessible Quotes
SYLPH, n. An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization. Sylphs were allied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, which dwelt, respectively, in earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious. Sylphs, like fowls of the air, were male and female, to no purpose, apparently, for if they had progeny they must have nested in accessible places, none of the chicks having ever been seen.
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Affairs Quotes
ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.Said a man to a crapulent youth: ""I thought You a total abstainer, my son.""""So I am, so I am,"" said the scrapgrace caught --""But not, sir, a bigoted one."" --G.J.