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Quotations by Ambrose Bierce

781 sayings with source references.

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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INTENTION: The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

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

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OCCIDENT: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

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

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REQUIEM: A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o'er the graves of their favorites. Sometimes, by way of providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.

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

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HEAVEN: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

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

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MAD: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.

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

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INDECISION: The chief element of success; "for whereas," saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards"—a most clear and satisfactory exposition of the matter.

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

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QUIXOTIC: Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

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

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REDEMPTION: Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.

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

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