Ambrose Bierce Quotes About Science
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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
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MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.
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GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.
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IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
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PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.
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BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Etna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.
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HOMŒOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.
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APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider
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PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.
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GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.
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PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
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MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.
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IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.
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OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.
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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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EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other-which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.
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DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.
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FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.
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RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.
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ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.
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FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs
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GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.
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HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow.
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Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.
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LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.
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EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
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ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.
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HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.
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TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
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