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Quotations by Ambrose Bierce

779 sayings with source references.

HEMP: A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · HEMP

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AVERNUS: The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be an error.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · AVERNUS

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PAIN: An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · PAIN

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FEAST: A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. In the Roman Catholic Church feasts are "movable" and "immovable," but the celebrants are uniformly immovable until they are full. In their earliest development these entertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held by the Greeks, under the name Nemeseia, by the Aztecs and Peruvians, as in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it is believed that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters. Among the many feasts of the Romans was the Novemdiale, which was held, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · FEAST

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DEPUTY: A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · DEPUTY

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CARTESIAN: Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum—whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum— "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · CARTESIAN

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DANCE: To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · DANCE

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OCCASIONAL: Afflicting us with greater or less frequency. That, however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase "occasional verses," which are verses written for an "occasion," such as an anniversary, a celebration or other event. True, they afflict us a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no reference to irregular recurrence.

Ambrose Bierce · Il dizionario del diavolo · The Devil’s Dictionary · OCCASIONAL

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