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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.

Ambrose Bierce

Eloquence, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Appearance Art Color Fools White
They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Animal Born Egg Loud Lying
The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Country Development Engagement Existence People Strife
Mausoleum, n: the final and funniest folly of the rich.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Final Funny Rich
Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Harm Patient Prescription Situation
Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Black Color Optimism White
There are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Instrument Worst
War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.
AMBROSE BIERCE

God Place Teaching War
Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Death Edit Revision Sin
Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Call Distance Poor Rich Willing
Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Country Fools Freedom Instrument Power
Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Beautiful Death Essential Example Poison
Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Disappointment Perspective Time
Alliance – in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Each Other Hands International Separate Thief Union
What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Believe Country Democracy Oneself Ruin
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Blacksmith Cloth Kind Man

He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.

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He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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