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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

Ambrose Bierce

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Ambition Death Desire Enemy Friendship
The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Fall Hard Himself Man
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.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Avoid Mindset Ourselves Reflection Relationship
Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
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Act Repeat Word
Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Astrology Custom Easy Fate God Responsibility
Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Division Domain Forever Hope Present
Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Disguise Education Understand Wisdom
Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
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Country Discover Fertilization Person
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Happiness Temptation Weakness
Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.
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Best Gift God Man
Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Death Edit Revision Sin
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
Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.
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Coward Emergency Himself Legs Thinking
MYTHOLOGY, n. 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.
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Belief Body History Invention Original People True
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
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
AMBROSE BIERCE

Love Marriage Sanity Temporary

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.

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