Ambrose Bierce Quotes, Innovation Quotes, Lexicographer Quotes

The bold and discerning writer who, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense has no following and is tartly reminded that 'it isn't in the dictionary' - although down to the time of the first lexicographer no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Innovation Quotes , Lexicographer Quotes

Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Player Quotes , Men Quotes

To seek a justification for a decision already made.

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Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think. Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.

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Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.

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PICKANINNY, n. The young of the "Procyanthropos", or "Americanus dominans". It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.

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LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp."

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An archbishop is an ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

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diplomacy, n.: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Sarcastic Quotes , Country Quotes

HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Night Quotes , Doe Quotes

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes.

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Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

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Conversation: A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Commodity Quotes

Botany, n. The science of vegetables - those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Flower Quotes , Color Quotes

I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.

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PIG, n. An animal ("Porcus omnivorus") closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Food Quotes , Animal Quotes

CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.

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EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.

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QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is contained in the pocket of another - usually about as many times as it can be got there.

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A chop is a piece of leather skillfully attached to a bone and administered to the patients at restaurants.

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Tags : Ambrose Bierce Quotes , Food Quotes , Cooking Quotes