The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.


Ambrose Bierce

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SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
AMBROSE BIERCE
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.” ~ Ambrose ...
J.J. MCAVOY
No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar ...
H. P. LOVECRAFT
high crimes and misdemeanors.
ABBE LOWELL
One of the great privileges of being a part of the Senate, it being the greatest deliberative body i...
BILL NELSON
There is a real incumbent advantage, because the line between campaigning and Senate duties is very ...
LARRY NOBLE
As one of the responsibilities of Vice President, I plan on organizing the Senate. By increasing the...
LEANDRA TORRES
You will notice that what we are aiming at when we fall in love is a very strange paradox. The parad...
WOODY ALLEN
We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand sc...
WOODY ALLEN
I do not believe the framers of the Constitution would have considered this particular situation hig...
PAUL NEWMAN
I am neither accusing President Obama of having committed high crimes and misdemeanors nor advocatin...
DAVID LIMBAUGH
Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C.
I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES
Administrator McCarthy committed perjury and made several false statements at multiple congressional...
PAUL GOSAR
And is the senate finance committee not an authoritative body of the U.S. Congress?
ANNE FOLEY
The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make. �...
VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE
The Old Testament God is a person with body parts and passions. The Church of England God has neithe...
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Apparently, the hard facts of war need not inconvenience the Senate at this time. And the solemn dut...
ARIZONA REPUBLICAN
Something wrong with your child? Feed them and put them to bed. Something wrong with your man? Feed ...
SUSAN CARTWRIGHT
If you're hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate. You'll g...
BOB DOLE
We don't believe the Senate can sustain a filibuster, ... Any Democrat that wants to vote against th...
DICK ARMEY
We are all very pleased with the unanimous vote by the Senate.
RICHARD GETTY
I'm really results-oriented. To get results in the Senate, the best way is to reach out to members, ...
MIKE DEWINE
[Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, who faces a tough re-election bid, said he is pleased to see the Senate e...
MIKE DEWINE
Though my plans at the moment are vague, I can assure you that I'll never run for the Senate in New ...
LAURA BUSH
As many members of the Senate as there are, there's that many different views of how you do offsets,...
JUDD GREGG
When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, he raises the IQ of both bodies
EVERETT DIRKSEN
took to the Senate floor to denounce the president's conduct as immoral and harmful because 'it send...
MONICA LEWINSKY
In the bill that was introduced in the Senate, in the bill that I introduced along with some members...
PAT ROBERTS
When the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee says that, you know you're going to get it.
JOE LIEBERMAN
Grassley is a very good chairman, very fair, and he tries his very best to be bipartisan, ... But th...
JAY ROCKEFELLER
He's got one of the best legal minds in the Senate,
SLADE GORTON
There are very few times you can go to the Senate floor and save lives, ... We have it within our po...
MIKE DEWINE
When a guy gets elected to the Senate or the governor's mansion, he wakes up the next morning and sa...
GERALDINE FERRARO
Today, two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy. For the t...
ROBERT EKSTRAND
Aemon’s blind white eyes came open. “Egg?” he said, as the rain streamed down his cheeks. “E...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
It is my conclusion that the human mind and body is essentially a single cell rechargeable battery t...
STEVEN MAGEE
It's the most volatile time. It's when somebody is first charged. The emotions are high.
JENNIFER MARLINGA
The commission has found significant abuses in the collection of old, charged-off debt.
JOEL WINSTON
We are satisfied that this is being settled as a civil matter. Despite a long, thorough and high-pro...
MONA WILLIAMS
I thought that the initiative that the Senate produced was very important and very effective,
ALAN GREENSPAN
mount a national crusade against the senate elections.
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI
Democrats are in open disarray in the Senate. This is not the type of fight you win by coming late t...
JONATHAN TURLEY
I think in the end, we'll have a trial, ... We will render a verdict, as the Senate has on 15 other ...
PHIL GRAMM
I am proud that the Senate has come together to address the urgent need for comprehensive immigratio...
EDWARD KENNEDY
To me, the central issues before the Senate is whether or not the Senate will allow President Bush t...
LINDSEY GRAHAM
If you look at Reagan who had two [failed Supreme Court] nominees, who lost control of the Senate an...
KEN MEHLMAN
The Senate and the House are at loggerheads, and it would be virtually impossible for the leaders of...
LARRY SABATO
It is obvious that members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle really are troubled by the way t...
BARRY FRIEDMAN
The bill ended up stalling on the Senate desk after senators closed their session early last week.
RICHARD STAPLER
[Proponents -- mostly Democrats -- are threatening to tie up the Senate unless Lott schedules procee...
MITCH MCCONNELL
I think I can speak for every Senator, saying that he or she ran for the Senate because we want to h...
MAX BAUCUS
The House looks like more fun. It's like the Donahue show. The Senate is like one of those Sunday mo...
PHIL DONAHUE
Even a small city like ours will feel a major impact if this (bill) is passed in the Senate.
ROBERT GARCIA
There has not been the cooperation that there apparently has been on the Senate side,
JANE HARMAN
Are we going to demand that they come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and renounce their faith...
JEFF SESSIONS
I think we're knocking on the door of a veto-proof margin in the Senate.
SEAN TIPTON
I do not believe that John Roberts has met the burden of proof necessary to be confirmed by the Sena...
EDWARD KENNEDY
I left Penney's in 1969 to join the Nixon administration and I didn't come to the Senate until 1992,...
ROBERT F. BENNETT
If the Senate fails to act and move forward on those nominees,
SCOTT MCCLELLAN
There's about six bills being looked at in the Senate that would change and put a deposit fee on the...
BILL WORREL
It's good to have a new face [in the Senate] as opposed to someone who's already been around.
DON STAPLEY
You know, I never have been a stagnant kind of individual. I've been in the Senate 22 years. I'm sti...
EDMUND S. MUSKIE
[The six-month extension] is the best outcome we could possibly imagine. The Senate stood firm, and ...
EMILY SHEKETOFF
If we need a law passed, obviously we need the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass that ...
MICHAEL MOORE
My preference is that we eliminate the Senate.
DALTON MCGUINTY
The Senate president supports the bill. I think it's going to go.
CINDY DAVIDSMEYER
This is one of the worst things the Senate has ever done. On the back of a cocktail napkin they have...
GITA GUTIERREZ
It's mostly to emphasize that we're all on the same side, ... The university's faculty-elected repre...
ERIC ROBERTS
The next signal has to come from the Senate president. We'll see if the Senate caucus wants to get T...
FRANK DEANER
Women's place is in the House - and in the Senate
GLORIA SCHAFFER
The difference between the two for me, fundamentally, is that the Senate and the governor want to do...
GEOFFREY SEGAL
We're very happy the Senate chose to keep the full text of the amendment as the ballot question. It'...
DYANA MASON
Sen. Gregg, like Sen. Byrd, has been working with his colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Commit...
ERIN RATH
If the FBI and the Senate can be so easily hacked, what does that say for the nation, in the public ...
JAMES ADAMS
A lot of different things go into the mix when determining whether or not Roberts is confirmed. The ...
JAMES MCCANN
Judge Roberts deserves overwhelming bi-partisan confirmation by the Senate. Only those willing to ju...
JAN LARUE
If you look at it, even with over five years in the Senate to make an impression on Florida voters, ...
JEFF SADOSKY
Different majorities in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, as now looks possible, would be the ...
LUIGI SPERANZA
If the House can get it done, I think the Senate could, but I'm not optimistic,
JO WHITE
If there is no avoiding a trial in the Senate, by stepping aside (Clinton could) spare our nation we...
ROBERT SCHULLER
It's now up to the full Senate to move swiftly to confirm John Roberts so he can assume his duti...
JAY ALAN SEKULOW
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
I can confirm that a 28-year-old New Zealand man was today charged by Norfolk Island police with mur...
LARRY ANDREWS
Young men today are growing up with Oklahoma, much the same way young men grew up with Florida State...
CHUCK LONG
Look to your heart and soul first, rather than looking to your head first, when choosing. Rather tha...
JEFFREY R. ANDERSON
What men call the shadow of the body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.
OSCAR WILDE
It's a little hard to believe 40-year-old men as high school students.
TIM VAN PATTEN
Today, two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy. For the t...
BOB EKSTRAND
Impeachment should be reserved for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors where the pres...
GEORGE MASON
I do not intend to allow the Senate to rubber-stamp the president's plan to reward the Chinese Commu...
JESSE HELMS
His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha...
TEKOA MANNING
Nobody or Nowhere? Fern: I'd rather be nobody at home than somebody somewhere else.
Ambrose: I'...
AMY HARMON
To the extent you don't repay, you'll be charged very high rates.
MARTIN NISSENBAUM
The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, ...
LYDIA MARIA CHILD
The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, ...
LYDIA M. CHILD
He is charged with possession of child pornography and nothing else.
DEAN EICHELBERGER
It is a coup because while the Brazilian Constitution allows for impeachment, it's necessary for...
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA
By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.
E.M. FORSTER

More Ambrose Bierce

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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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.
AMBROSE BIERCE
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...
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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The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.
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