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ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming...

ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of...

BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular part...

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the ...

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.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

An immaterial but visible bei...

An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with gre...

CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another. When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was observed to be deeply moved. "What!" said one of his disciples, "you weep at the death of an enemy?" "Ah, 'tis true," replied the great Stoic; "but you should see me smile at the death of a friend.".

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

PROOF, n. Evidence having a s...

PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

HERMIT, n. A person whose vic...

HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

A large stone presented by th...

A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

He laughs best who laughs lea...

He laughs best who laughs least.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

GOOSE, n. A bird that supplie...

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.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of...

LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

WRATH, n. Anger of a superior...

WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, "the wrath of God," "the day of wrath," etc. . . .

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty...

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mi...

IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

SATIETY, n. The feeling that ...

SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

PRIVATE, n. A military gentle...

PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity...

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

ZENITH, n. The point in the h...

ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though Horizontalists hold that the posture of the body was immaterial.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue wh...

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

Ambrose Bierce 1281 quotes

Добрые, щедрые, великодушные: 6 советских актеров, которые были всеобщими любимчиками

23

Советских актёров часто ставят в пример как образец духовной силы, национальной гордости и внутренней красоты. Они стали символами эпохи, носителями культуры и нравственности. Но, как известно, за кул...

Десять кинозвезд, которые отлично поют

83

Актеры — люди творческие, но кто бы мог подумать, что некоторые из них скрывают прекрасный голос. В эпоху раннего Голливуда актеров с музыкальными способностями было немало — это считалось скорее норм...

Мэрилин Монро, Ким Кардашьян и другие

115

Неузнаваемая Ким Кардашьян в объективе фотографа Маркуса Клинко, 2009 год. Памела Андерсон в самой первой съёмке для журнала «Playboy», 1990. На фото голливудская актриса Dorothy Lamour и шимпанзе Джи...

Что стало с детьми-звездами: Рэдклифф и компания спустя годы

219

Расскажем, как сложилась судьба актеров, которые начинали сниматься еще в детстве.
Остаться на вершине в Голливуде удаётся не каждому, особенно если путь начался в детстве. Одни актёры теряются из-за...

Жизнь за границей: как изменились судьбы 7 уехавших телеведущих

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Два года назад отечественное телевидение столкнулось с беспрецедентной кадровой тектоникой — целая группа ярких и узнаваемых ведущих стремительно исчезла с экранов федеральных каналов. Эти лица долгие...

Кира Найтли, Деми Мур и другие

165

Кира Найтли на страницах журнала к выходу фильма «Пиджак», 2005. Следы динозавра, раскопанные в русле реки Палакси. Техас. США. 1952г. Самая большая женщина рядом с самым маленьким мужчиной, 1922 год....