Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
AMBROSE BIERCEAborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
More Ambrose Bierce Quotes
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Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
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Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.
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There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know.
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Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
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Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.
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Optimism – the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.
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Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
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Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.
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Life – a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.
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Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
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Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
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Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue.
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Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.
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Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.
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REFLECTION,n: An Action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.
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