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Quotations by Ambrose Bierce

751 sayings with source references.

FREEDOM: Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.

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

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EDITOR: A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

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

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MYTHOLOGY: The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

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

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CAPITAL: The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the disgrace before meat. Capital Punishment, a penalty regarding the justice and expediency of which many worthy persons—including all the assassins—entertain grave misgivings.

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

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COMMERCE: A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

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

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BOUNDARY: In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.

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

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POCKET: The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.

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

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OBLIVION: The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

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

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LIVER: A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time considered the seat of life; hence its name—liver, the thing we live with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.

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

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MEERSCHAUM: (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been disclosed by the manufacturers.

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

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